


we make hope from every small disaster

by someitems



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Injury, Mentions of Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 07:57:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14052447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someitems/pseuds/someitems
Summary: “'What a nice family,' Ms. Takahashi says to him after the Hanyus have left. Akira nods absently, his mind already on a dozen other things he has to finish. Plenty of nice families come through his office every week, but most will only see him once or twice.But two weeks later, Yumi and Yuzuru are in the waiting room again, and Akira begins to wonder what he’s let himself in for."How Akira Kikuchi left behind his settled life in Sendai and ended up with a new home, a second family, and the most interesting job he's ever had.





	we make hope from every small disaster

**Author's Note:**

> I've always been fascinated by Yuzu's trainer, Akira Kikuchi aka "Kikuchi-san", because he's been present for some of the highest and lowest moments of Yuzu's career, and seems to be a crucial part of Yuzu's support system - but he's almost never interviewed, and there's very little information about him (at least in English). The idea for this story was born when I was musing over what it must be like to be in Kikuchi's shoes. I intended it to be a short character study (lol) but it spiraled into a much longer story about Kikuchi's journey with Yuzu over Yuzu's career, and his own personal journey.
> 
> Content notes: This fic contains descriptions of Yuzu's various injuries over the years, including a fairly extensive description of the collision and aftermath at the 2014 Cup of China and the urachal remnant disorder in 2014 that led to surgery. Other injuries are mentioned in less detail. This fic also contains a brief description of the events and aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.
> 
> The details of Yuzu's career are as accurate as I could make them, although the timing of a few events has been changed for narrative purposes. Since there's almost no information about Kikuchi in English, the events and details of his life in this story are purely fictional, and this story should not be considered a source of any accurate information about him. 
> 
> Title taken from "Painting Like Chagall" by the Weepies.
> 
> Many thanks to sophiahelix for beta and all the encouragement.

One ordinary Wednesday, a woman and a little boy walk into Akira Kikuchi’s clinic. There is no thunder and lightning, no voice from the sky, nothing to mark the occasion. Just the tinkle of the bell on the front door, and a call from Ms. Takahashi at the reception desk, asking him to come out to the waiting room.

The woman looks slightly familiar to him—he must have seen her around town. The little boy stands beside and slightly behind her, cradling his left wrist in his right hand. There are traces of tears on his face, but his expression is defiant. 

The woman bows slightly, with a distracted air. “Hello, I’m Hanyu Yumi.”

“Kikuchi Akira. What can I do for you today?”

“My son hurt himself figure skating.” She sighs. “His coach recommended we come see you about it.”

Akira crouches down so he’s eye to eye with the little boy. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Yuzuru.” He gives a deep, sweeping bow, still holding his wrist. “Pleased to meet you.”

Akira stifles his smile. “And what hurts? Your wrist?”

Yuzuru nods, his halo of hair billowing up around his face. “I fell on it. I can still skate though, it just hurts a lot.”

“He kept skating for twenty minutes after he hurt it,” Yumi cuts in, with some exasperation.

“You’re a very tough athlete, I see,” Akira says, and Yuzuru brightens, standing a little taller. “Come with me, I’ll have a look at that wrist.” He ushers the two of them back to his examining room.

Thankfully, the wrist isn’t broken, just sprained, and Akira bandages it up. “Take good care,” he says to Yuzuru, who nods vigorously, setting his hair flying again.

“What a nice family,” Ms. Takahashi says to him after the Hanyus have left. Akira nods absently, his mind already on a dozen other things he has to finish. Plenty of nice families come through his office every week, but most will only see him once or twice. 

But two weeks later, Yumi and Yuzuru are in the waiting room again, and Akira begins to wonder what he’s let himself in for.

****

Over the next few years, Akira treats Yuzuru for an endless parade of strains and scrapes, tweaks and bruises. After the first few months, he recommends that Yuzuru also get regular massages to help lessen the injuries, and soon Yuzuru is in his office three times a week, dumping his coat and backpack in a heap on the floor, reading a stack of manga while Akira gently works his muscles. 

The amount of abuse that Yuzuru enacts on his own body terrifies Akira, and he takes Yumi aside at one point to gently suggest that maybe she should direct her son towards some other hobbies. Yumi just laughs. “He loves it too much. Every time I tell him he can do something else if he wants, he says ‘no, I want to skate.’”

“I’m concerned about how his body will hold up. He’s very young, so he heals quickly, but—“ Akira shakes his head.

Yumi grimaces, and for just a second Akira catches sight of the depths of her fear, the knowledge that someone you love has chosen something dangerous. “Me too, but—this is how it is.“ She changes the subject. “You should come watch him skate. Then you’ll see.”

This is how Akira finds himself perched on a frigid plastic seat in an ice rink two towns over, at the end of a long row of Hanyus. He’s touched, to have been invited along as though he was part of the family, but he’s not really expecting a lot from this competition. Last year he’d gone to see his grandniece Rika’s first ever dance recital, and the atmosphere in the rink reminds him of that. Overeager parents thrilled to see their children try their best, but nothing to appeal to anyone not watching with the eyes of love. At least the recital hall had been heated.

But then Yuzuru skates out to center ice and takes his position with dignity, and Akira sits up a little straighter in his seat. Yuzuru’s not perfect, he stumbles a few times, but he jumps with mesmerizing assurance. He’s a real performer, intense and dramatic, and he carries himself like he’s much older. The applause when Yuzuru finishes feels real, not polite. Akira knows next to nothing about figure skating—he watches it on TV sometimes, but he can’t tell the jumps apart or anything—but Yuzuru’s talent is unmistakable. He turns, mouth open, to Yumi, who smiles smugly. “I told you,” she says.

The Hanyu contingent shuffles into the lobby to meet Yuzuru, who comes running up to them at top speed, a bouquet of flowers tucked into the crook of his right arm. It’s a flurry of bowing and hugging and congratulations, until finally Yuzuru comes to Akira.

“Well done,” Akira tells him, seriously, and suddenly there are two skinny arms around his middle and Yuzuru’s face is buried in his stomach. He tries not to overbalance, stepping back and bringing his hand up to ruffle Yuzuru’s hair.

“Thank you,” Yuzuru says, muffled.

“It was no trouble to come,” Akira says.

Yuzuru detaches himself, finally, and shakes his head. “No, thank you for helping me. So that I’m not too hurt to skate. Coach says I’m better this year because of it.”

Akira feels a sudden warmth behind his ribs. He looks Yuzuru in the eyes, holding his gaze. “You’re welcome. Let’s keep working together, hmm? We can be a team, if you want.”

Yuzuru grins, his eyes lighting up. “Yes!”

From then on, Yuzuru flourishes, and so does their relationship. After Akira came to his competition, Yuzuru seemed to decide that he could be trusted, and now the massages and consultations are punctuated by an endless flow of chatter. Akira listens patiently, staying mostly quiet, and the more he listens the more Yuzuru opens up to him.

“You can tell me anything,” Akira told Yuzuru once—mostly so Yuzuru wouldn’t try to hide his injuries, something Yumi has already caught him doing a few times. “Nothing you say leaves this room.” And while Yuzuru is much more open about his body now, he also seems to have taken it as a blanket invitation to let Akira in on all the details of his life. Arguments with his parents about practicing and homework. The day he finally got permission to learn a quad. The boy in his class he had a crush on, before he decided crushes were stupid.

“Why are they stupid?” Akira asks cautiously, hoping that no one has yet tried to bully Yuzuru for liking boys. “Was he mean to you?”

“No, he doesn’t know,” Yuzuru says. “I just hate how it feels. You feel really weird inside.”

Akira chuckles. “That’s just what a crush feels like. It’s normal.”

“It’s distracting. My jumps were really bad for a week.” Yuzuru scrunches up his face in disgust. “I told Mama about it and she said it was normal too, but I decided, I’m not going to like anybody until I’m older.”

“After you win the Olympics?” Akira teases.

“The second time,” Yuzuru says, matter of fact.

“Oh, of course,” says Akira. He’s heard about Yuzuru’s life plan in detail many times. This shouldn’t surprise him.

The longer they work together, the more Akira grows to enjoy his time treating Yuzuru. He’s missed having kids around, ever since his niece Mai got promoted and moved her family to Tokyo. The afternoons with Yuzuru ease that burden, a little. 

When Yuzuru enters seniors, he generates a lot of attention, and a documentary crew comes through to film Akira’s clinic one day. Yuzuru takes the cameras in stride, calm and placid as Akira works his back and bandages his injured wrist. Akira himself is jittery, thrown off balance, and it comes to him suddenly, that this is the life Yuzuru is in for if he lands the jumps and wins the medals he dreams of. 

He feels an urgency to say something on camera that will be preserved—a message to the people of Japan who don’t know this boy, words for the Yuzuru of the future, wherever he will be.

“This kid’s greatest asset is his pure heart,” he says into the camera, and he means it like a warning: heaven help you if you damage it in any way.

“Work hard,” he tells Yuzuru, who nods gravely, scratching his cheek with his bandaged hand. “I’ll follow you.”

****

Akira does keep up with Yuzuru’s skating—reading the little paragraphs about his competitions in the paper, watching on TV sometimes. Yuzuru does so well at his first senior Nationals that he’s selected to compete at Four Continents, and he’s overflowing with excitement during his last massage session before the trip to Taipei, fidgeting and squirming like a young child. Akira doesn’t try to make him settle down, just laughs and promises to watch as much of the competition as he can.

The free skate is a Saturday, so Akira’s at home, eating dinner in front of the TV. When he sees Yuzuru shake his coach’s hand and skate to center ice, his chest tightens up suddenly, and he sets his plate and chopsticks down, hands too shaky to eat. It doesn’t let up until Yuzuru lands a beautiful quad, eliciting startled applause from the audience and a gasp from Akira himself. Yuzuru gets his highest score of the season, putting him in first with only one skater left to go, and Akira feels a sense of relief that’s almost dizzying.

He shakes himself. He’s getting too attached. As fond as he is of Yuzuru—and of all the Hanyus, who are a warm and generous family—he has to remember that Yuzuru is just another patient. His time with Yuzuru is surely limited; someone of his talent will be seeking other help than an old specialist in his hometown before long. When Yuzuru inevitably moves on, he won’t remember Akira at all. It’s hard to be the silent professional around Yuzuru, who treats everyone who helps him as though they were his long-lost family members. But Akira is old enough to know how easily that kind of thing can fade. Next time he sees Yuzuru, he needs to try harder to keep a little distance between them.

Except three weeks later the earth splits in two, and the streets run with seawater, and so the next time he sees Yuzuru is in a packed school gymnasium. All four Hanyus are huddled on the floor together, Yuzuru nibbling at an onigiri from the emergency rations. Akira is with some other local doctors in one corner of the gymnasium, treating injuries with whatever supplies are on hand. He can’t spare more than a second of relief that the Hanyus are all right, when so much else is going wrong.

Akira stays in the gymnasium for five days, sleeping little and working around the clock to tend to the other evacuees. As soon as he can, he makes his way down to Tokyo, where he can stay with Mai and her family and figure out what happens next. He can’t really fathom that anything could happen next, after such an upheaval.

He sleeps in their spare bedroom, waking up with a jolt every night, certain he’s felt the floor move under him. Mai’s husband Ryo keeps looking at him strangely, like he wants to ask if Akira is all right but doesn’t really know how to do it tactfully.

For his part, Akira prefers to be left alone. Their daily routines, work and meetings and Rika’s school, are almost too ordinary for him to handle, filling him with a sharp ache. He splits his time between thinking obsessively about Sendai and trying very hard not to think about Sendai. The rental company for his apartment building calls to tell him it’s no longer habitable, and he laughs at the representative, a harsh choked sound. As if that was news to him. He tries not to think about his clinic building, or his business. Those will be waiting for him, or they’ll be washed into the sea along with everything else. It doesn’t seem to matter one way or the other.

Little by little, life stabilizes, moving inexorably and heartlessly back to normal. Akira goes back to Sendai and finds his clinic in disarray but the building still standing, a miracle he hadn’t even looked for. He offers his services for free at first, sleeping in his office while he looks for somewhere new to live. A steady stream of people come to see him, a few just looking for company or gossip, but most needing treatment for the aftereffects of the earthquake: tense backs from sleeping on floors, bruises from falling debris, headaches from stress. He sees many of his old friends and acquaintances, but not the Hanyus.

One day Akira reads in the paper that Yuzuru is traveling around the country, performing in ice shows to raise money for the relief efforts. While Akira was in Tokyo, Yuzuru has been training in Yokohama and Hachinohe, doing his best to get back to a condition where he can compete next season. Akira feels a warm rush of pride, that Yuzuru isn’t letting this hold him back. If nothing else happens, if he never sees Yuzuru again, all he wants is for him to continue on, with his beautiful jumps and his fighting spirit. To bloom like a single flower in an empty field.

****

Yuzuru returns to Sendai in the summer, a little subdued, a little more focused. He comes back to Akira’s clinic, and for one entire session they don’t say more than two words to each other. Yuzuru rests his chin on his arms as Akira pushes on his shoulders, drums on his spine. His muscles are tighter than usual, after months without massages.

Eventually, Yuzuru is back to chattering, although he mostly talks about his plans for the season, jumps and choreography and embodying the character of Romeo. If he’s still thinking about the earthquake, if he still has nightmares like Akira does, he never brings it up.

Yuzuru barrels through his season with determination and stubbornness, making his mark on every competition. His popularity’s grown, after the ice shows this summer, and all of Japan seems to be watching him. Akira catches more and more news clips about him, sees his face on posters outside the newly reopened Ice Rink Sendai. A reporter calls the office phone one day. “I’d like to ask you some questions about Hanyu Yuzuru,” he asks in a blustery voice.

“All right,” says Akira. “But you’ll need to make an appointment first. Twenty-two thousand yen an hour.” There’s a loud huff, and then a click at the other end of the line.

Word must spread, because reporters leave Akira alone, after that. But he can’t do much to stop the flurry of articles and news reports. They call Yuzuru the hope of Sendai, an inspiration for victims of the earthquake, and Akira winces. What monumental pressure for a youth of seventeen, himself still recovering.

But Yuzuru is the strangest seventeen-year-old that Akira has ever met, because the attention seems to energize him, not drag him down. His scores keep going up, and when he wins bronze at Nationals and is named to the Worlds team, it’s barely a surprise.

Akira remembers last year, watching Yuzuru at Four Continents and worrying that he was getting too attached. That time seems so far away now, a distant memory. It’s hard to care now, whether he’ll be too sad when Yuzuru leaves for bigger and better things. If this year has taught him anything, it’s that there’s no real way to make it easier to lose things. So he settles down to watch Worlds on the TV in his waiting room, hoping only that all Yuzuru’s efforts will not be in vain.

When Yuzuru falters in the short program, Akira’s heart clenches, and he worries that the pressure is finally taking its toll on Yuzuru’s skating. But Yuzuru comes roaring back in the free, wild and abandoned and on fire with raw emotions. The crowd leaps to its feet when Yuzuru finishes, cheering wildly while he gasps at center ice, and Akira is startled to find that’s he’s standing too, arms over his head in celebration. 

Three Saturdays later, Akira is tidying his waiting room at the end of the day when the door opens and Yuzuru bursts in. “I need to talk to you,” he says, breathlessly.

“What’s going on?” Akira asks. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s nothing bad,” Yuzuru says. “I just need to talk.”

“All right, come in,” Akira says, motioning to his office. Yuzuru comes in, walking slowly despite his urgent tone. Akira narrows his eyes, watching the way Yuzuru sets his right foot down carefully. “Are you injured?”

Yuzuru looks down at the floor. “I sprained my ankle at Worlds. During one of the practices.”

Akira lets out an exasperated groan. “Yuzuru.”

“I still got a medal!” Yuzuru says.

“That’s not the point,” Akira says. “Is it still hurting you?”

Yuzuru hesitates. “Yeah. A lot. I wrap it before I skate but it doesn’t seem to help.”

Akira shuts his eyes, pressing his finger and thumb to the bridge of his nose as he gathers his strength. “All right. Well, whatever you have to talk about, you can tell me while I look at your ankle.”

Yuzuru climbs onto the examining table and takes off his shoe and sock, wincing as his fingers brush his ankle. Akira suppresses the urge to lecture Yuzuru and sits down on a low stool. He cradles Yuzuru’s foot gently, examining the swollen, bruised flesh. “What did you need to talk to me about?” he asks.

“I’m getting a new coach,” says Yuzuru. “We just decided today.” He grimaces as Akira presses down lightly on his ankle. “His name is Brian Orser.”

“Brian Orser?” The name sounds vaguely familiar to Akira, but he’s not sure why. “A foreign coach?”

“Yeah, he has a big school in Canada. Yuna Kim trained there when she won gold at the last Olympics. Javier Fernandez trains there now, he has the best quad sal, I want mine to look like his.”

The names wash over Akira, who’s still focused on the first part of Yuzuru’s statement. “Canada?”

“Yes, I’m moving to Canada. In two weeks.”

Akira’s hands falter a little as he unrolls a bandage. “Are you scared?”

“A little.” Yuzuru’s voice drops to a whisper. “But I have to do it. So I can be World Champion, and Olympic gold medalist, and everything. If I want to be the best, I have to go train with the best, that’s what Coach Nanami says. She took me as far as she can but I can go farther in Canada.”

“Will you be there all by yourself?” Akira asks, concerned.

“Mama is coming too,” Yuzuru says. “And—actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

He sounds so serious that Akira stands up, looking him in the eyes. There’s a long pause. Yuzuru’s expression is strained, his brow furrowed.

“Out with it,” Akira says. “Tell me.”

“Come to Canada with me,” Yuzuru says, all in a rush, and then claps a hand over his mouth. “Sorry, that sounded rude.”

Akira’s mouth falls open. “What?”

“When I talked to Mr. Orser and the people from the federation, they said they wanted to help me feel comfortable in Canada, and I could bring anyone on my team that I wanted. But I don’t really have a team, just you and Mama, and I know there will be trainers and therapists in Canada but none of them speak Japanese, and nobody knows me over there, and so I just thought—“ Yuzuru trails off. “You don’t have to…I just…Mama said I should ask anyway just in case…”

Akira stands there, stunned. “You want me to come to Canada?”

“It’s like Coach Nanami said,” Yuzuru says. “If I want to be the best I have to train with the best. And—you’ve always helped me be better.”

“It would be a big change for me,” Akira says slowly. “You leave in two weeks?”

“Yeah. But you wouldn’t have to come right away, if you couldn’t. Mama said to say that would be fine.”

Akira knows he should take time to think about it, to weigh the positives and negatives. But his heart is warmed by Yuzuru’s faith in him, the certainty that he’s better than whatever high-powered doctors are at this training center in Canada.

He thinks about the debris still strewn around Sendai, the people who come to his office and say this is their last visit, they can’t stay here. He thinks about continuing on the well-worn track he’s laid for himself: poking and prodding at bodies all day, eating dinner in front of the TV, going to sleep. He’d thought he was too old for new adventures, too set in his ways, but here’s his chance. To step out into a new world instead of clinging to the wreckage of his old one.

Yuzuru’s face is upturned in anticipation, his eyes anxious, like he’s expecting Akira to refuse him.

“All right,” Akira says. “I’ll come with you.”

“Really?” Yuzuru asks, his eyes shining. “Thank you!” He leaps to his feet, heedless of his ankle, and flings his arms around Akira.

“We’re still a team, just like we agreed,” Akira says, and finds he has to clear his throat. “Just—rest that ankle a little, all right? You don’t want to introduce yourself to Mr. Orser in poor condition.”

“Okay, fine,” Yuzuru says.

After Yuzuru leaves, walking delicately but with a smile on his face, the full weight of Akira’s decision comes crashing down on him. He’s never lived outside Japan, has barely gone anywhere but Sendai and Tokyo for the past two decades. The last time he was abroad was a three-day holiday to Seoul, years and years ago. He studied English in school, but his skills are basically nonexistent now. He knows next to nothing about Canada, and silly pictures flash into his head: himself, Yuzuru and Yumi in a tiny hut on the edge of a frozen lake, learning to skate from a man in a huge fur coat. He’ll have to tell Rika that he probably can’t come to her next dance recital.

But despite all that, he can’t bring himself to regret it. He feels an ache in his bones, an itching for something new. For the first time in a while, he has no idea what the future holds—and it thrills him.

****

Toronto is exhausting and energizing by turns, bewildering and beautiful. When Akira emerges from customs at Pearson, dazed by jetlag, he feels woefully unprepared for the reality of being this far from home. All around him are people speaking English, a fast, bright, unintelligible noise, like cars rushing down a busy street. He goes to buy a bottle of water and pulls out a handful of yen from his coat pocket before remembering—they’re useless now.

The JSF and the Toronto Cricket Club, Yuzuru’s new skating home, have joined their resources to provide Akira with an apartment in an unassuming brick building not too far from the rink. It’s pleasant, if simple, and well furnished. Akira knew he wouldn’t have to buy a bed or a table, but when he walks into his new bathroom and finds a full set of towels, a bar of soap by the sink, and a roll of toilet paper already in the holder, he’s stunned. Out of curiosity, he opens the cupboard under the sink. A full row of cleaning supplies and a twelve-pack of toilet paper stare back at him. Overwhelmed and grateful and so, so tired, he bursts into tears. 

Akira’s first week in Toronto is a blur. He finds himself falling asleep at odd hours of the day, stricken with jetlag. He walks up and down his new street, puzzling out the signs and watching the buses go by. He gets email after email of links from Yumi, who is attempting to conquer Toronto through research: Asian grocery stores. Free English classes. The Japanese cultural center.

Akira goes to the Cricket Club on his fourth day in Toronto, once the jetlag is starting to lift and he feels a little more like himself again. He is introduced to Coach Brian, to Coach Tracy, to a host of staff and trainers and doctors who will also be working with Yuzuru. They show him to his office, a small examining room on the north side of the building. Yuzuru barges in shortly afterwards, breathing a huge, dramatic sigh of relief when he sees Akira.

“I need you to talk to me for a very long time because if I hear any more English today I’m going to die,” he says, all in a rush.

“Only if you talk back,” Akira says, chuckling.

Yuzuru’s massage session lasts twenty minutes, and every single one of those minutes feels like a relief. Akira hears all about Yuzuru’s time in Toronto so far: the friendly people he’s met at the Cricket Club; the annoying, horrible ban on jumps while he improves his skating skills; the condo in a gleaming glass high-rise where he and Yumi live now. At the end of it, Yuzuru gets off the massage table reluctantly.

“Go,” Akira urges. “I’ll see you soon. And listen to your coach. He knows better than you.”

“See you soon,” Yuzuru says, leaving as slowly as possible.

As the weeks wear on and the newness of Toronto becomes slightly more familiar, Akira discovers an unusual feeling, buried underneath the culture shock and the exhaustion and the confusion: boredom. It seems ridiculous that he could be bored with an enormous city at his disposal, with a language to learn and a new place to navigate. But the truth is that taking care of a single teenager, no matter how demanding and stubborn, fills nowhere near as much time as running a clinic did, and Akira’s just not sure what to do with the rest of it. He finds the grocery stores that Yumi told him about and cooks dinner for himself every night. He braves the bus so he can play bridge at the cultural center. He watches Japanese TV with the volume way up, taking comfort in even the most grating presenters and saccharine ads. Still, it’s not enough to really make a life.

He came to Toronto for adventure, to expand his horizons, but his life is narrower here than it was in Sendai. He can’t go crawling back home, won’t abandon Yuzuru after Yuzuru asked him to come. But he also can’t deny that he didn’t expect any of this. He listens to Yuzuru’s complaints about his lessons in skating fundamentals, how he feels like nothing is happening, and thinks, _I know how you feel._

****

In September, Yuzuru returns from the Finlandia Trophy with a gold medal and a request for Akira to come with him next time he competes.

“Are you injured?” Akira asks sharply.

“No,” Yuzuru snaps. “Why do you always think I’m injured?”

“You’re injured a lot,” Akira can’t help but point out. Yuzuru looks a little downcast at that, and Akira shakes himself. “What is it you need me for at the competitions?”

“It’s hard,” Yuzuru says, after a pause. “Coach Brian asked me about my condition but I didn’t know what to say, I couldn’t think of the words in English. And Mama’s with me but she’s all the way up in the stands, and—I would just feel better if someone else who spoke Japanese was there.”

“Of course,” Akira says, and sees Yuzuru visibly relax. “This makes sense. We’ll ask Coach Brian together.”

This is how Akira finds himself in the United States for the first time, in a black van with Yuzuru and Yumi and Coach Brian and Ms. Kobayashi from the JSF, winding through traffic to a boxy arena of concrete and glass. They sat Akira backwards, and he’s a little carsick, but he’s not about to complain.

The arena is cold, and smells of the ghost of buttered popcorn. Akira watches Yuzuru warm up for practice, gliding around the rink on one foot and then the other. Dressed all in black, slender and narrow, he looks like a shadow darting over the ice. Off to one side, Coach Brian is watching too, arms folded. He has an intent, supervisory air, as if he can help Yuzuru warm up well if he stares hard enough. 

Akira didn’t think he’d have a role at practice, and has mostly come so he’s right there to help Yuzuru stretch afterwards. But halfway through practice, Yuzuru comes over to the boards to drink some water. He blows his nose, and then looks around for a place to discard the tissue.

Akira tries to locate a trashcan so he can point Yuzuru towards it. He doesn’t see one, which seems a little odd, but maybe it’s somewhere else in the rink. He digs through his backpack and finds a plastic bag, which he holds open to Yuzuru.

“Oh, thank you,” Yuzuru says, dropping the tissue in and giving a little nod. He skates away, doing another lap around the rink. Akira has another idea. He digs around in his backpack with the hand that’s not holding the bag for a roll of medical tape and sticks the bag to the boards, right underneath Yuzuru’s water bottle in its grey cloth cover. 

Coach Brian looks over at him and grins approvingly. “Good idea,” he says.

Akira observes Yuzuru during the rest of practice—his skating, but also his habits. When he circles back to Coach Brian, what he does to cool down, the little cluster of objects arrayed on the boards and how he uses them. He amuses himself by coming up with ways to make the whole process more efficient and less precarious. Tape Pooh to the top of the boards, so he doesn’t fall off when Yuzuru snags a tissue as he skates by. Keep the towel and water bottle closer together. Have Yuzuru give his jacket to someone when he gets hot halfway through practice, instead of balling it up and tossing it onto the floor.

Most people probably wouldn’t care where they put their towel or their tissues, so it’s no surprise that no one has made these suggestions to Yuzuru before. But Akira has known Yuzuru long enough to know he is particular when it comes to anything related to skating. Having his belongings strewn haphazardly around is almost certainly bothering him. 

When they come back for the short program the next day, Akira decides to test out a few of his ideas. Yuzuru’s face is stern and serious, in competition mode, but it softens slightly when Akira holds out his arm for his jacket. 

“Thank you,” Yuzuru says. He looks at the neat row of his belongings, reaches out to stroke one of Pooh’s ears. “This is good, I like this better.”

“Yes?” Akira says. “We should do it this way every time?”

“Towel and water bottle switched,” Yuzuru says. “But—yeah.”

Akira snorts a little, and quickly disguises it as a cough. “All right, as you say.”

Yuzuru skates off, and Akira goes to rearrange the towel and water bottle, draping the towel so it lies evenly. Coach Brian notices him doing this and turns toward him with a smile. “You know, you don’t have to do that,” he says. “It’s not that important.”

Akira doesn’t really have the English vocabulary to argue. “It’s okay,” he says finally. “Important to Yuzuru.”

“Fair enough,” Coach Brian chuckles. “This kid is going to be the death of us, huh?”

Akira nods vaguely, not completely sure what Coach Brian is saying. Something about Yuzuru killing something—himself, the staff, the competition, all three are possibilities. He checks one more time that Yuzuru’s things are in order, then retreats backstage to watch the competition on the monitors. 

Yuzuru slouches languidly across the ice. His jumps are clean, his body relaxed, and Akira can hardly believe this is the same intense Yuzuru from warmups. His score is in the nineties, and there’s a chorus of gasps and murmurs from the others crowded around the monitor. “That’s a new world record,” the announcer calls. Akira feels a warm rush of pride. A world record for Yuzuru already! He knows that whatever he does to help Yuzuru is just a small drop in the bucket, that ultimately it’s on Yuzuru to skate well and no one else. But he can’t help but feel a little giddy, that he was part of a world record, somehow. 

The free skate is nowhere near as good, but it doesn’t diminish the bright memory of the day before. For the first time since they moved to Toronto, Akira begins to really understand what Yuzuru is doing there.

****

By a stroke of luck, or predestination, Yuzuru’s next competition is at the Sekisui Heim Super Arena in Rifu, a stone’s throw from Sendai City. Akira never thought he’d get to go back to Japan this soon, and he has trouble sleeping on the plane, waking up with a jolt almost every hour. It’s irrational, but part of him feels as if there’s still an Akira Kikuchi in Sendai, and he could peer in the windows of his old clinic and see himself treating patients, or run into himself on the street. As they drive down roads as familiar to Akira as his own face, he glances over at Yuzuru, who is looking out the window, tapping out a rhythm on Pooh’s head.

Yumi catches his eye. “It’s strange, isn’t it?” she says. “We were back here in August, and I felt like I was walking through a dream.”

Akira nods. “It’s very strange,” he agrees.

The van drops them at a hotel near the arena, another thing that feels a little bit off. Akira’s never stayed in a hotel around here before. He opens the curtains in his room to let some light in and gazes at the familiar buildings in the distance.

When Akira walks outside to get dinner, trying to beat the jet lag, every tattered poster on a streetlight seems like an old friend. He wanders around, considering every single restaurant he passes. He finally ducks into a little ramen shop and orders the biggest bowl on the menu. While he devours it, he eavesdrops on two women gossiping a couple tables over, just because he can. Japanese falls on his ears like rain on parched ground.

At official practice the next morning, Akira expects to see Yuzuru more relaxed, too. But he looks even more intensely focused than normal, his glare fierce enough to bore a hole in the boards. He falls on a quad sal and looks down at the ice with anger, muttering to himself.

After practice is over, Akira helps Yuzuru stretch out, pushing gently on his back so he can fold himself down to the floor. Yuzuru is dangerously tense, like a rubber band about to snap. “Are you okay?” Akira asks.

“I’m not injured,” Yuzuru hisses.

“That’s not what I meant,” Akira says. “Aren’t you happy to be back in Sendai?”

“Yes,” Yuzuru says slowly, with a tone that’s closer to “no.” He’s silent for a while, bending one of his arms behind his back and holding it there. “I have to—I have to do really well here,” Yuzuru says, after a while.

“You can still go to the Grand Prix Final if you get a silver or bronze, I think,” Akira says.

“No, I have to do well so everyone sees me,” Yuzuru says, urgently. “I don’t want them to say ‘Why did he go to Toronto?’ They have to see it was—it was worth it.”

Akira takes a deep breath, considering. “This is your hometown,” he says eventually. “They’re going to like you here no matter what you do.”

“I guess,” Yuzuru says.

The short program the next day holds the same type of tension as Yuzuru’s muscles. The arena crackles with energy, spectators chatting and competitors warming up. Coach Brian is bouncing on the balls of his feet, like he’s preparing to jump too. Akira has no idea how anyone can compete like this—it’s pulling him down, and all he has to do is guard Yuzuru’s bags. He catches Yuzuru’s eye. Yuzuru must see something in his expression, because he pulls out one of his earphones and comes closer to Akira.

“What is it?” Yuzuru asks.

“I can feel the pressure in here,” Akira says. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Yes,” Yuzuru says. “I’m going to skate clean.”

“It’s okay if you don’t,” Akira starts to say, and stops under a withering glare from Yuzuru.

“It’s not okay, but it doesn’t matter,” says Yuzuru. “Because I’m going to win.”

In the short program, Yuzuru breaks his own world record by a few tenths of a point, and Akira can breathe a little easier. Of course there’s still the free skate, which could be a disaster again, but Yuzuru’s words are ringing in Akira’s ears: he’s going to win.

On the day of the free skate, Akira is distracted. He managed to get tickets for Mai and her family, and he keeps scanning the seats in the arena, trying to spot them. 

Funnily enough, Yuzuru seems to be distracted too, or at least not quite as intensely focused. It’s another free skate where he starts strong, but falters towards the end, even falling over with a plop when his sit spin loses momentum. It’s much better than the last free skate, though, and he’s smiling when he comes off the ice, laughing with Coach Brian about his silly mistake. Combined with the world record, it’s enough to earn Yuzuru a gold.

After the victory ceremony, Yuzuru practically bounces through the arena, stopping in front of Akira to collect his bags. “Look,” he says proudly, and holds up the gold medal.

“Well done,” Akira says. “It’s beautiful.” He feigns a grab for it. Yuzuru ducks away from him, laughing, and almost runs right into Mai and Ryo, who are walking towards them, holding Rika’s hands.

“Oh, sorry,” Yuzuru says, bowing deeply.

“Looks like my company’s here,” Akira says. He hands over Yuzuru’s bags. “Take your stuff and go celebrate, all right?”

“All right,” Yuzuru says brightly, hurrying off.

Akira turns back towards his family, opening his arms to embrace them. “Mai, Ryo, it’s so good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you too, Uncle,” Mai says, her voice hoarse.

“Me too,” Rika pipes up.

Akira chuckles. “Yes, of course, you too.” He swings her up into his arms with a groan—she’s gotten bigger while he’s been away. “Are you ready to go to dinner with your old great-uncle?” Rika cheers.

They go to a little restaurant near the arena, much nicer than the one Akira dined at last night. Rika absorbs herself in coloring the placemat with some crayons Mai has produced from her purse while the grownups talk. It’s just catching up at first, about Akira’s flight to Japan and Mai’s busy season at work and how Rika’s school is going.

“How did you like the skating?” Akira asks, after a while.

“Oh, it was very nice,” Ryo says. “I had no idea there were so many different kinds of jumps.”

“Yes, it was really interesting,” Mai says, something low and skeptical in her voice. She pauses, taking a slow sip of water. “I thought you were working as a trainer, though.”

“I am,” Akira says, confused. “Well, he has other trainers in Toronto, but I’m his primary trainer when he’s competing.”

“That’s not what it looked like you were doing at practice,” Mai says.

“Well, I do other things too,” Akira says.

“Oh, yes, you hold his bags,” Mai says, dismissively. “I didn’t know that was a trainer’s job.”

“Well, it’s my job,” Akira says. He’s not sure what Mai is trying to say. 

“Did he tell you to do that?” Mai asks. “Or did his coach tell you?”

“I offered,” Akira says, a little testily. “I thought it would help him concentrate.”

“Oh, I see,” Mai says. She takes a bite of rice, chewing deliberately, and doesn’t say anything else. 

“We were in America a few weeks ago,” Akira says, after a while, trying to sound impressive.

“One of the big cities?” Mai asks. 

“Not really,” Akira admits. “It was pretty small.”

Mai hums sympathetically. Akira feels oddly offended, even though she hasn’t said much of anything. Does she think this is beneath him? It’s true that all the little things he’s been doing for Yuzuru, the taping of Pooh and the arranging of towels, are by no means his idea of a fulfilling career. But he still bristles at the idea that he’s lowering himself in some way.

Akira tries to think of something else to say about his work, something to make it sound serious and significant. But everything he can think of seems too defensive. Mai hasn’t challenged him outright, hasn’t actually told him he’s doing an unimportant job. Maybe Akira’s just reading too much into this. He picks at his food, trying to tamp down a surge of irritation.

“Was it worth it to move?” Mai asks after a while. “Is it better for you in Toronto than Sendai?”

To a more sincere questioner, Akira might say that he’s not sure, that it’s too early to say if his choice was the right one. But when he’s already feeling belittled, Akira is too stubborn to give any answer but one. “Yes,” he says firmly, crossing his arms over his chest.

The rest of dinner is spent mainly in silence. 

At the very end of dinner, Mai suddenly turns to Akira, bowing her head in apology. “I’m sorry if that was a rude question, Uncle.”

“It’s all right,” Akira says automatically. He realizes that’s mostly a lie as soon as he says it, and he can’t help but add, “But Toronto is good for me. And my work is good, even if it’s not exciting.”

“I know,” Mai says. She sighs. “It’s just—“ she starts, then stops. “It was nice to see you. Come back soon, all right?”

“It was nice to see you too,” Akira says. He hugs them all goodbye, kissing Rika on the top of her little head. As he walks back to his hotel, a wave of longing for Toronto hits him, inexplicable and overwhelming. He feels caught between worlds, suspended in midair.

****

After NHK, Akira and Yuzuru cobble together a plan. At the Cricket Club, they have a weekly schedule, massages and consultations and stretching exercises, meetings with Coach Brian and Coach Tracy. Occasionally, Akira watches the practice sessions with Yumi, sitting in the big armchairs in the lounge next to the rink. It’s soothing, watching the class glide back and forth, up and down, a row of fluid shapes.

On the road, he becomes the keeper of small objects: earbuds, athletic tape, hotel keycards. When Yuzuru needs his run-through filmed, it’s Akira who pulls out the iPad in its gold cover and sets it up. When Coach Brian accidentally leaves behind Pooh on the way to the kiss and cry, it’s Akira who rushes after him and thrusts the stuffed toy into his arms. (Coach Brian chuckles.) When they get stuck at the airport waiting for Yuzuru’s bags, it’s Akira who digs in his backpack for energy bars to snack on.

Despite what he said to Mai at the restaurant, it is a little strange to Akira, that this is his life now. He travels the world for free, but barely sees any of it, spending his days in ice rinks and hotels. He has a front-row seat to incredible athletic achievements, but he has to use it to make sure used tissues don’t fall on the arena floor. 

On bad days, Akira grumbles about spending another day on his feet in a cold ice rink, carrying a bunch of fancy gear for a teenager who will spend ninety percent of the day taking him for granted. Sometimes he feels that he is really too old for this, that he should have stayed in Sendai and faded gracefully into his retirement years. 

But then there are the days where it all feels right. He’ll watch Yuzuru launch into a quad like it’s nothing and think how lucky he is to be part of this boy’s career. He knows that Yuzuru competes better when everything is the same, when he doesn’t have to keep track of anything, and so it’s easy to help him do that.

For all that Yuzuru can be particular and demanding, he’s also thoughtful and kind. He’s never ungrateful, even if he doesn’t really pay attention to Akira when he’s in competition mode. After their first competition together, Akira comes home to find a package waiting for him: a pair of fancy ergonomic sneakers. _To keep your feet from hurting,_ the note says. They’re pale gold, an exact copy of a pair Yuzuru owns that Akira had admired. Akira just shakes his head.

Working with Coach Brian is an unexpected perk, too. The language barrier notwithstanding, Akira feels a kinship with him. Coach Brian is a warm and steady man, an affectionate pillar, holding his students up through thick and thin. It’s easy to like him, and Coach Brian seems determined to make a friend of Akira even if they can’t quite have a proper conversation. Standing at the boards with Coach Brian, exchanging a knowing glance while Yuzuru monologues about his jump landings, Akira feels accepted, _seen_ , in a way he never expected to be in Canada.

It’s a job like any other job, this business of taking care of Yuzuru. But if Akira has to pick up used tissues for anyone on this earth, there are much worse people to do it for than Yuzuru Hanyu.

****

No amount of careful planning and well-laid routines can prepare Akira for the Olympics, though. It’s like a roller-coaster, soaring up to dizzying heights and plummeting to unknown depths. Selfishly, it’s something of a dream come true for Akira: he remembers watching the Olympics as a child, daydreaming about standing on a podium with a gold medal around his neck. _You’re going to the Olympics,_ he keeps telling himself, and it’s thrilling, even if it has nothing really to do with him.

Once they arrive in Sochi, that starry-eyed feeling lasts until practices start. Then it’s just like any other competition, except the pressure is heavier, a thick fog hanging in the air. Akira arranges Yuzuru’s towel and water bottle with utmost precision, and ducks out of the way of the media, and films every second of practice just in case.

Yuzuru seems to be dealing with the pressure in two ways: jumping triple axels, and goofing around with Javier Fernandez. Akira watches as they circle the rink, laughing and talking. One of Javier’s hands caresses Yuzuru’s neck playfully, and Yuzuru pretends to bat him away. The two of them goof off a lot—Akira’s seen them doing it at other competitions, and sometimes even during practice. He’s glad that Yuzuru’s made a friend in Canada, someone who can lighten some of Yuzuru’s heavy, serious intensity. But this is a little much, even for them, and Akira wonders if something else is going on. He’s heard all the rumors about the Olympic village.

Yuzuru comes to a stop in front of him and takes a long drink from his water bottle, wiping at his face with the towel. “Does Javier know that you have to win two Olympic gold medals before you can have a crush on him?” Akira asks, in Japanese.

Yuzuru coughs and flushes. “It’s not like that.”

“Are you sure?” Akira asks, skeptically.

“Well. I don’t really know what it’s like. But he’s a good friend, and he just…makes me feel calmer, is all. So I like to play around with him.”

“I see,” Akira says. “Well, if something else happens, with him or with anyone, just be sure to tell me. So I can treat you properly, and help your muscles recover.”

There’s a long, awkward silence.

“I changed my mind,” Yuzuru says eventually, looking stricken. “I’m not dating anyone until I'm old and retired, so I never, ever have to tell you about it.”

Akira guffaws, so loudly that some of the other skaters and coaches turn to look at them. Yuzuru hastily puts down the water bottle and skates away. Akira starts to feel bad, but then Yuzuru launches into a beautiful triple axel-triple toe combination at the other end of the ice. Maybe there’s something in this strategy of Javier’s. A little lightness, a little humor, puncturing the pressure like a balloon.

But on the day of the short program, not even Javier’s jokes can lighten the tension. The faces of all the men are serious and intense, waiting to take the Olympic ice. They rock back and forth in place, vibrating with pent-up energy. Coach Brian has the Spanish team jacket draped over his arm, preparing for Javier to skate right after Yuzuru, and he keeps folding and unfolding the edge of one cuff, until it’s firmly creased.

At center ice, Yuzuru slumps into his starting position. The first notes of the guitar sound across the arena. Yuzuru snaps his head up on the wailing high note, running his hands through his hair, and from that moment on everything falls perfectly into place. He owns the Olympic ice, swaggering and soaring. There’s nothing to be worried about, because he makes every move with certainty. When he raises his arm to the sky, loud cheers follow.

 _One hundred and one point four five,_ the announcer calls out, and Akira’s mouth falls open. A new world record at the Olympics, a barrier broken for the first time, the fourth world record of his career. It’s astounding, and yet not at all. No one else skates like Yuzuru. Akira lets out a long, slow breath. Maybe there was no need to worry.

Except, of course, there’s still the free skate. Yuzuru’s Achilles heel, the source of his biggest frustration for the past two seasons. When Yuzuru falls on his opening quad sal, Akira’s whole body goes cold. He watches Yuzuru fight and claw his way to a respectable performance, like he’s done so many times before. But this isn’t the NHK Trophy or Skate America. This is the Olympics, with so many other talented men who could take the lead.

Akira regrets, suddenly, every single time he’s teased Yuzuru about his dreams of winning gold. It seemed amusing, when he was a kid, such determined confidence. And yesterday, that gold had felt inevitable. But now, watching Yuzuru clench his eyes closed as he waits for his scores, Akira confronts for the first time the possibility that Yuzuru might fail.

But it’s enough, somehow. Yuzuru takes the lead, and keeps the lead, and just as Akira’s squinting at the monitor, trying to be sure that those numbers mean what he thinks they mean, he hears a loud commotion. Dozens of photographers and reporters are rushing backstage, and right in the center of the throng is Yuzuru, hugging Brian, his face shining in triumph. When Yuzuru lifts his head, he spots Akira, and comes barreling towards him. The media follow at his heels in a pack, but Akira stops noticing them because Yuzuru is hugging him tightly, chest heaving.

“I did it,” Yuzuru pants, voice hoarse and teary. “It was so hard but I did it.”

“You did it,” Akira echoes, and his own voice comes out hoarse. “I knew you could.”

Yuzuru straightens up, looking Akira in the eyes. “Thank you for everything,” he says earnestly. “You were right there with me this whole time. I could feel your help when I was out on the ice.”

Akira bites down hard on the inside of his cheek, because he’ll be damned if he starts crying in front of all these cameras. “I don’t know,” he jokes instead. “I didn’t get a chance to do all my spells.”

Yuzuru throws his head back and laughs, a high, gurgling sound of pure joy, as shutters click all around them. The joy seeps into Akira’s bones as he stands there, and he’s suddenly glad every second of this is being documented. He wants to remember this moment for the rest of his life.

****

From that moment on, it seems like the crowd around Yuzuru never quite dissipates. When Akira remembers Sochi after the free skate, he sees in his mind’s eye a wall of bodies, pressing in everywhere they go. Akira himself is mostly ignored, stepped around like a piece of furniture. But Yuzuru is in a perpetual spotlight now, his every move caught on camera. 

No matter how much attention Yuzuru gives them, the media is still voracious, a restless animal pursuing him wherever he goes. It gets so intense that Coach Brian requests an extra security guard, a burly-looking Russian man who plows through the crowds so Yuzuru can get back to his room and sleep. When they reach his hotel, a grateful, exhausted Yuzuru hands the security guard the bouquet of flowers he’s been holding all day and bows in thanks. The security guard looks down at the flowers with a bemused, fond look on his face, and Akira has to chuckle. Another victim of Yuzuru’s generosity.

Akira and Yuzuru march in the closing ceremony, bundled in identical puffy white coats. Akira feels awestruck, like a kid again. He waves his little Japanese flag vigorously as they walk. Beside him, Yuzuru takes everything in silently, soaking it up with wide eyes. They’ve only been here for three weeks, but it feels like a hundred years have passed. It’s unbelievable that they have to just go back to the rest of the season now, as if nothing happened. Yuzuru must be thinking the same thing, because he turns to Akira and says, “The first thing I want to do when I get home is practice my quad sal.”

When they actually get home—back to Sendai, where he and Yuzuru and Yumi will be until Worlds in Saitama—it’s clear Yuzuru’s dream of sneaking off to Ice Rink Sendai for jumping practice will have to wait. There are more interviews, first, and a special victory ceremony with the mayor, and a parade. When Yuzuru tells Akira about the parade, he’s a little skeptical. Sendai loves Yuzuru—all of Japan loves Yuzuru, now—but a parade seems presumptuous. Will so many people really turn out to see Yuzuru ride down the street on a float?

Ninety-two thousand people flood the main streets of Sendai on the day of the parade. Akira rides along in a car following Yuzuru’s float, watching the crowd wave and scream. It’s astounding, this support, and it terrifies Akira a little too. It is possible to be killed by kindness, to be suffocated by love. How can Yuzuru possibly keep up with the grasping expectations of all these people?

Yuzuru’s fame is now so huge that it’s absorbed everyone in his orbit. His father and sister have abruptly moved apartments, trying to throw journalists off their trail. When he sees Akira in Saitama, Coach Brian tells stories of being surrounded at the airport, journalists crowding him as if he had won the gold medal too. Akira himself keeps getting double takes from passersby, as if they’re trying to place where they’ve seen him before. 

During Worlds, he meets Mai for lunch near the arena, a quick visit while Yuzuru does more media and Ryo watches Rika at home. When he enters the restaurant, the hostess tells him, “Congratulations,” and it takes him a second to figure out why. He simply bows in response, unsure what to say.

Lunch with Mai is pleasant, mostly small talk about her work and Rika’s progress at school. She asks him about the Olympics, and the parade. “I saw you on TV,” she says. “Right by the boards. My friend Yuka said she saw you too.”

“Ah,” Akira says. “Just holding his bags.” He’s trying to sound neutral, but it comes out more pointed than he intended.

Mai winces. “I’m sorry if I made you feel bad about all that.”

“I forgive you,” Akira says. “I understand, it’s not a very glamorous career.”

“Well, it is now,” Mai said. “Taking care of the Olympic champion. A lot of people would kill to be in your shoes.”

She means this as a compliment, Akira knows, but it leaves him a little cold. It’s still the same job, Yuzuru is still the same Yuzuru, but everything around them has shifted and changed in just a few weeks. There will be people, now, who only value Yuzuru as the Olympic champion, hangers-on and social climbers and celebrity chasers. 

“Think about that the next time you have to do something unpleasant for someone else,” Akira says. “Maybe you’re doing it for a future champion.”

****

The 2014 season, the season Yuzuru enters firmly seated on the throne, starts out on an inauspicious note. Yuzuru’s back gets stiff from overtraining, and he pulls out of the Finlandia Trophy so he doesn’t hurt himself. Akira is grateful Yuzuru finally seems to have realized that his health is as important as his skating. Still, it’s a strange beginning to the season, an awkward gap in their plans.

Yuzuru is healed and ready for the Cup of China, though, and Akira looks forward to the smooth old routine starting back up again. The chaos of the Olympics is behind them, and ahead of them an ordinary season. Maybe there’s a little more pressure, since Yuzuru is Olympic and World Champion, but Akira feels pretty confident that Yuzuru can handle it.

But they all forgot: Akira, Yumi, Coach Brian, Yuzuru himself. Yuzuru’s smooth landings and easy transitions lulled them into a false sense of security. Somewhere along the way, they stopped believing that the ice was truly dangerous.

During the six-minute warmup for the free skate at Cup of China, Akira is fiddling with Yuzuru’s bags, yanking on a stuck zipper to close the pouch that holds his headphones. Yuzuru is in second after the short program, a respectable placement considering it’s his first competition of the year, but still not his ideal. It means there’s no time for faulty zippers today. 

Just as Akira finally pulls the zipper free, he hears a murmur from the crowd. He looks up just in time to see another skater collide with Yuzuru, the force of the impact flinging both of them aside. Yuzuru lies on the ice in a heap, twitching. The skating continues around him, as if nothing has happened.

A bolt of adrenaline shoots through Akira. Yuzuru is hurt, maybe badly, and no one is doing anything. He screams, “Help him! Help him!” but it’s like a nightmare: no one around seems to hear him yell. It will be hours later before he realizes he was yelling in Japanese, completely incomprehensible to anyone else there.

Coach Brian starts yelling too, calling for a doctor. Yuzuru rolls over onto his back, pawing at his face. He still doesn’t get up. Even from this distance, Akira can tell that he is bleeding, that his pain is intense.

Akira’s body is a numb, cold substance. Thoughts flash through his brain, burning bright like lightning. He has to help Yuzuru. He will climb the boards and get him. Yumi is somewhere here, and she has seen this too. If no one does anything, Yuzuru is going to die.

Finally, endless ages later, the medical team in their bright yellow vests come scuttling out to Yuzuru. Akira can’t see a stretcher, just a medical bag, and he is going to shove them out of the way and carry Yuzuru off in his arms, and then he will murder every single organizer of this event for hiring a medical team without a single goddamn stretcher. But just then, Yuzuru pulls himself to his knees, then to his feet. He is dazed but determined, and he glides to the open rink door, the medical team following after him. He shakes them off when they try to guide him, as if to prove he can move under his own power. When he gets to the rink door, his legs give out and he collapses into Coach Brian’s arms.

Belatedly, Akira unfreezes and moves around to help him. They take Yuzuru backstage, away from the cameras, and settle him in a folding chair. Blood is streaming from his chin. Akira goes to grab a tissue, but then realizes Pooh is still perched on the boards, and he feels like a complete and utter failure. The simplest thing to help, and he can’t do it.

One of the medics is crouching next to Yuzuru, looking into his eyes. He has Yuzuru follow his finger, has him give the date and location. “Count backwards from a hundred by sevens,” the medic asks, in English.

“I can’t do that in English at any time,” Yuzuru grumbles, in Japanese.

Akira turns to the medic. “Can he say in Japanese?” he asks. “Easier for him.”

The medic nods, and Akira listens to Yuzuru count backwards, irritable and breathless but accurate all the same. It’s the first bit of relief since Akira saw Yuzuru lying on the ice. “He say it all right,” Akira says. “I don’t think he has concussion.”

Coach Brian nods, face set and wan. “That’s good. We should get a bandage for that cut on his chin, and then he should go to the hospital to get checked out.”

“After I skate,” Yuzuru says, weakly.

Akira’s stomach drops. How can Yuzuru be thinking of going back out on that terrible ice?

“No!” Akira says, instinctively, his voice coming out in a low growl.

Coach Brian crouches on the other side of Yuzuru to look into his eyes. “Yuzuru, listen to me. You don’t have to be a hero. You can rest instead. It’s all right.”

“I want to skate,” Yuzuru says. “If I don’t have concussion, I can skate.”

“It’s your decision,” Coach Brian says. “But don’t feel like you have to. I won’t be mad. No one will be mad at you.”

“If I can’t skate I can’t go to Grand Prix Final,” Yuzuru says. “If I don’t skate, I mad at myself.”

Coach Brian sighs, deep and heavy. “All right, then. We should get you cleaned up a little.” 

Akira racks his brain for something, anything he could say to dissuade Yuzuru, but he comes up empty. When Yuzuru is this set on something, there’s no moving him.

The cut on Yuzuru’s chin is bleeding too freely for a bandage. One of the medics takes out a needle to stitch him up, and Akira can’t look. He’s never been squeamish about blood before, although he doesn’t deal with it much in his day-to-day life. But seeing the medic prepare a suture makes him a little dizzy, and he turns away.

There’s no time for anesthetic. Yuzuru reaches for Akira’s hand and squeezes it tight against the pain, so forcefully that Akira’s fingers go pale at the ends.

Yuzuru takes the ice crowned with a thick tan bandage. He shakes Coach Brian’s hand like it’s any other performance, then skates to center ice to fight his way through the program.

The next four minutes are some of the worst of Akira’s life. Each of Yuzuru’s falls is like a blow over his heart, and for just a second he’s convinced that this time Yuzuru won’t get back up. That he’s injured himself too badly to fight any further. But he soldiers on, fierce and determined, running on pure adrenaline and muscle memory until he skates off after his final bow. Once he reaches the boards, all his strength leaves him at once, and he can barely step out of the rink. Coach Brian almost carries him to the kiss and cry. When his scores arrive, putting him in first with one skater left to go, Yuzuru puts his head in his hands and bawls. Akira wants to bawl too.

But he can’t, of course, because he has a job to do, and at this moment in time that job is to half-walk, half-carry Yuzuru to the back exit of the arena, where an ambulance is waiting. Yumi has appeared, a small shadow of worry, and she takes Yuzuru’s suitcase. “You go back to the hotel,” she says, as they move. “I don’t think they’ll let anyone but me ride in the ambulance. I’ll come find you when we know more.”

“All right,” Akira says.

He gets back to the hotel somehow, moving in a daze. If this were the evening after a normal competition, Akira might have a snack, drink some herbal tea, and get himself ready for bed. Instead, he sits down on the edge of the hotel bed and stares into space, not even removing his shoes. He feels rattled right down to his core, deeply shaken. He can’t stop seeing it in his head: Yuzuru sprawled on the ice. Yuzuru falling in the free skate. The blood on his chin, the sweat on his face. He keeps glancing down at his phone where it rests on the bedspread, waiting to hear from Yumi. Dreading and hoping at the same time.

It’s time to be honest with himself, Akira realizes. It’s long past time to admit that Yuzuru is not just his employer, or his responsibility. Yuzuru is like a son to him, and Akira loves him with a father’s love. Carrying Yuzuru’s things, picking up old tissues, comforting and encouraging him: these are part of Akira’s job, but they are also the actions of parenting. And as annoying as these tasks can be, if Akira were to one day no longer be paid for them, he knows in his heart of hearts he would feel the impulse to do them anyway.

But nonetheless, he failed Yuzuru deeply today, not despite but because of this. He was frozen with anxiety over Yuzuru, and so he couldn’t act—couldn’t stop Yuzuru from retaking the ice, couldn’t help him in any concrete or useful way. Even the medics, who took far too long to check on Yuzuru, did more to look after him than Akira. Akira is being paid millions of yen to protect Yuzuru’s health and well-being, and yet almost all the help Yuzuru received today was from other people.

He’s too attached to be professional, now. Someone else needs to have this job, for Yuzuru’s sake. It makes Akira feel a little sick to think about, but he knows it’s right. Yuzuru has Yumi with him, and the support of his actual father, back in Japan. He doesn’t need another parent; he needs someone with more distance, who can do the harder things. Someone whose heart doesn’t ache every time Yuzuru does more damage to his body.

Akira rubs at his eyes. He’s been naïve, but now he can fix this by letting go. It’s what any parent would do.

His phone buzzes, and there’s a knock at his door at the same time. “Hello?” he calls.

“It’s me,” Yumi says. Akira opens the door to let her in. She looks bone-weary, her face drawn, and he opens his arms instinctively. They embrace for just a minute, and Akira feels a shudder go through her tiny form.

“How is he?” Akira asks when they step apart.

“He’s resting,” Yumi says. “Finally.” She settles herself in the armchair by the window, dropping her purse to the floor like she’s casting anchor. “And there’s no really serious damage. No brain damage, nothing broken. Just a lot of bruising, and some sprained muscles. Oh, and his right ankle is sprained again.”

“I kind of just assumed that last one,” Akira blurts, and Yumi looks at him. After a minute, they both burst into wild laughter, the stress and hurt of the day expelling themselves forcefully from their bodies.

Yumi wipes her eyes. “Oh, Yuzuru,” she says. “What are we going to do with him.” She sighs, and the amusement drifts out of her face.

“How are you?” Akira asks.

“You don’t want to know.” Yumi grimaces. “I yelled at Coach Brian.”

Akira stifles another wild giggle at the image of a furious Yumi trying to topple the calm mountain that is Brian Orser. “Oh no.”

“I was so angry, I was shaking,” Yumi admits. “I asked him what the hell he was thinking, letting Yuzuru back on the ice. Why he didn’t try to stop him.”

“He did try,” Akira says. “But it didn’t work very well.”

“That’s what Coach Brian said. He said, ‘I know you’re upset, Mrs. Hanyu, but do you really think Yuzuru would have stayed off the ice unless we tied him up and held him down?’” Yumi drops her voice in unconscious imitation of Coach Brian. “I knew he was right, but I didn’t want to admit it.”

“I wish we had held him down,” Akira said. “Watching him skate—“ He shudders.

“I know,” Yumi says. “That boy is too headstrong. “

“Coach Brian did everything he could for him,” Akira says. “You shouldn’t be mad at him.”

“It wasn’t really him,” Yumi says. “It was just—everything. And he was right there, and everything came out all of a sudden.”

“I understand,” Akira says.

“Then they told us Yuzuru was all right, just beat up, and I started crying and I couldn’t stop. I got snot all over Coach Brian’s jacket. He was crying a little, too, but I don’t think he wanted me to see.” She sighs again. “Coach Brian and Yuzuru were asking about you. You should go over to the hospital tomorrow.”

Akira’s stomach twists, hearing that. His thoughts from earlier had gone out of his head while he listened to Yumi, but now they rush back in with full force.

“Yumi,” he says, and she turns her head towards him. “We can wait on this until Yuzuru is better, but I’m—I’m not sure I should work for Yuzuru anymore.”

“What?” Yumi’s expression is startled. “Why not?”

Akira tries to explain, words faltering as he speaks. “What happened today—I'm not sure I was any help—“

“I know you did all you could,” Yumi interrupts. “Yuzuru said you looked after him while he got stitches.”

“I couldn’t even look at the needle,” Akira says. “I was too worried to move. It’s just—I care about him too much to be of any use.”

“Just to be clear on this,” Yumi says, “you want to quit because you care about Yuzuru?”

“I know I don’t have any real right to say this, but Yuzuru is like my own child,” Akira admits, not looking at Yumi. “He needs someone with a clearer head looking out for him. There’s a reason doctors don’t treat members of their own family.”

There’s a long silence. After a while, Akira risks a glance at Yumi. She’s staring off into space, deep in thought.

“I think you’re wrong,” she says, finally.

“You don’t understand,” Akira says. “Someone who was less attached might have helped him more today.”

“No, listen,” Yumi says, with motherly authority, and Akira sits up a little straighter. “When it—when it happened, I wanted to leap onto the ice and help him myself.”

“Me too,” Akira says.

“But then I thought, ‘Akira is with him. Akira will look after him like you would.’” She smiles. “Having you with him, it’s like having part of myself down there. I don’t worry so much about him.”

“But—“ Akira starts.

“There are too many people who only care about Yuzuru because he can skate well,” Yumi says, bitterness in her tone. “If he stopped skating, these people would stop thinking of him. But you love him like I do—and Coach Brian and Coach Tracy do too, I can tell, although I don’t know if they would ever say it.”

Akira thinks about Coach Brian’s face today, the way he rubbed Yuzuru’s back in the kiss and cry. “I know they do.”

“He doesn’t need any more people who only think about his skating,” Yumi says. “For the kinds of things he’s trying to do, the things he puts himself through, he needs people who love him for who he is.”

A lump lodges in Akira’s throat. He swallows hard. “Thank you,” he says eventually.

Yumi smiles faintly. They sit there for a little while longer, letting the silence of the room wash over them.

“I’d better try and get some sleep,” Yumi says eventually. She rises to leave, then stops. “I think we’re going back to Japan while he recovers so he doesn’t have to make such a long flight while he’s injured. Will you come with us?”

She says it lightly, easily, but it feels significant to Akira. He nods. “Of course,” he says.

Once Yumi leaves, Akira finally readies himself for bed. He’s afraid if he closes his eyes he’ll see nothing but images of the crash, so he turns on the television, low. The murmur of Chinese words, like ocean waves in the distance, lulls him into an exhausted sleep.

The next day, Akira goes to the hospital. Security is tight, and they won’t let him in to see Yuzuru until Yumi comes out and gives him permission. Yuzuru is in a private room, propped up on some pillows. A dark bruise blooms on the left side of his chin. He looks tired, but less distraught than yesterday.

“Sorry for causing you so much worry,” Yuzuru says, the second he sees Akira.

“I’m just glad you’re going to be all right,” Akira says. “How are you feeling?”

Yuzuru grimaces. “I think every single one of my muscles hurts.”

Akira hums sympathetically. He sits down in the chair next to Yuzuru’s bed.

“Sorry I didn’t listen to you yesterday,” Yuzuru says, after a while. “I had to skate, but—“ He trails off.

“I understand,” Akira says. “You can make it up to me by taking a good rest now, and letting yourself heal.”

Yuzuru rolls his eyes a little. “That’s what Mama said.”

“Then you know it’s good advice,” Akira says. “Your mother is a very smart woman.”

“If I can skate at NHK, I have to, though,” Yuzuru says, frantically. “I can’t miss the final if I have the chance. It’d be like—it’d be like I fought through for nothing.”

“I know,” Akira says. He leans over to stroke Yuzuru’s hair briefly. “I know. But just rest in the meantime, all right? I’m coming to Japan with you, so if you don’t rest, I’ll know.”

“Yeah,” Yuzuru breathes, letting his eyes fall closed.

They sit there in silence for a while, and for the first time since the collision, some of the tightness around Akira’s heart eases up, just a little.

****

Although he’s hardly healed at all, Yuzuru, predictably, insists on skating at the NHK Trophy. It’s some of Yuzuru’s worst skating ever, riddled with falls and pops, but it’s just barely enough to qualify him for the Grand Prix Final. Yuzuru hasn’t fought in vain.

By the time the Final rolls around, Yuzuru has almost completely recovered from his injuries. His skating is back to normal, strong and smooth, and Akira doesn’t wince so much when he’s on the ice. In Barcelona, Yuzuru skates with effervescence, delighted that he’s finally able to _perform_ instead of fight. His free skate in particular is almost perfect, jumps landed cleanly in time with the dramatic notes of the overture. When all’s said and done, he winds up with his first gold of the season. On top of the podium, he glows.

At the gala, Yuzuru introduces Javier in halting Spanish, wearing a bright yellow jersey. The audience cheers, and Akira smiles to himself. It’s a relief to see Yuzuru back to his normal self, joking and playing and soaking up attention.

The relief is short-lived. After the gala, Yuzuru comes out of the locker room and beckons to Akira. 

“I need to show you something weird,” he whispers, glancing around.

“Weird how?” Akira asks.

Yuzuru tugs Akira’s arm and pulls him into a shadowy corner of the staging area. No one’s around, but Akira follows gamely. 

Yuzuru lifts up his shirt and points to his navel. “Look.”

Akira can’t hold back a gasp. There’s a lump rising from the hard, taut flesh of Yuzuru’s stomach, about the size of a golf ball. 

“Do you know what that is?” Yuzuru asks, glancing up at Akira with worry in his eyes.

“I have no idea,” Akira says. “Did it just start?”

“Yeah. My stomach was hurting a little after the short program but I thought that was just my muscles. I didn’t think it would be like—like this.” Yuzuru drops his shirt slowly, careful not to bump the swelling. 

“It’s only a couple hours until we leave for Japan,” Akira says slowly. “I suppose it can wait until then, but you’d better go to the hospital as soon as we arrive.” He reaches out to pat Yuzuru on the back. “Hang in there, okay? And tell your mother if you haven’t already.”

Akira dozes fitfully on the flight, the dull energy of fear keeping him from fully falling asleep. That lump can’t be a sign of anything good, and his mind races through terrible possibilities, accumulating worst-case scenarios as the trip wears on. 

Back in Sendai, he goes straight to his hotel while Yuzuru goes to the hospital with Yumi. Akira unpacks his bag slowly, then channel-surfs, killing time while he waits to hear from Yuzuru. After a few hours, he gets a text: _doctor says it could be urachal remnant problem. got antibiotics to help_. Akira sighs heavily and turns off the TV. At least it doesn’t sound too serious. 

The next evening, Akira is having a leisurely dinner with his old friend Kiyoshi when his phone starts ringing. He ignores the call, not wanting to be rude, but it rings again almost immediately, and he glances down at the screen. It’s Yuzuru.

“Sorry, I have to take this,” he tells Kiyoshi, and steps away from the table. “Hello?”

Yuzuru clears his throat on the other end of the line.

“Yuzuru?” Akira says. “What’s going on?”

“It got a lot worse,” Yuzuru blurts out, his voice unsteady. “I was getting ready to take a bath and the lump on my stomach burst. It—” He trails off. “It’s really bad.”

“Oh no,” Akira breathes, his stomach dropping. “Poor thing. Are you okay?” He cringes as soon as he asks it—the answer is obviously _no_.

“Dad is taking me back to the hospital,” Yuzuru says. “We’re on our way right now.” He pauses. “It hurts a lot.”

“They’ll know what to do there,” Akira says, for his own sake as much as Yuzuru’s. “It’ll be okay, they’ll help you.”

“Okay,” Yuzuru says. He sounds faint and far away. “Okay, I’ll call you again after they see me.” 

“Hang in there,” Akira says, pathetically. There’s a beep as Yuzuru hangs up the phone. Akira takes a moment to collect himself, swallowing hard, before he goes back into the restaurant.

His feelings must be evident on his face, though, because Kiyoshi asks instantly, “Did something happen?”

Akira hesitates. He doesn’t want to give away Yuzuru’s secrets, now that he’s a superstar, but Kiyoshi probably won’t blab. “Yuzuru had to go to the hospital. He’s having problems with his stomach.”

“Oh dear,” Kiyoshi says, clucking his tongue. “Do you want to cut this short?”

Akira really doesn’t want to go back to his hotel room and stew in worry while he waits for Yuzuru to call. “No, it’s all right. I can’t do anything but wait anyway.”

They have a cup of tea, then another, chatting for a while longer. In the midst of his fear, Akira feels grateful: it’s nice, to be able to come back sometimes, and have a meal with someone he’s known since he was young. Picking up right where they left off.

The warm glow fades soon after Akira leaves the restaurant, wrapping his scarf tight against the December chill. As he walks toward the hotel, his phone vibrates in his pocket. He digs it out with shaking fingers.

“So I saw the doctor,” Yuzuru says, without preamble. “He says it’s definitely urachal remnant disorder. I guess there’s some tissue left over in my body from when I was developing in the womb, and they think maybe it got damaged when I fell in China? And then it swelled up from there.”

“What do they need to do for that?” Akira says. “Do you need surgery?”

“I will,” Yuzuru says. “But I can do nationals first.” 

“Are you sure?” Akira asks in alarm. Surely even Yuzuru has limits.

“I’m sure,” Yuzuru says, in a tight, determined voice. “I’ll have to rest for two months after the surgery. I can wait until after nationals.”

“If you’re sure,” Akira says slowly. “I’ll help you make sure you’re as ready as you can be.”

The next two weeks are simultaneously slow and too fast. Yuzuru is resting a lot, trying not to aggravate his stomach, so Akira only sees him a few times. He helps Yuzuru stretch carefully, asking if he feels all right. “Yes,” Yuzuru says every time, in a firm voice that precludes argument. 

Yuzuru must tell Coach Brian about what happened, because Akira wakes up one morning to an English text message that’s all capital letters: _R U SURE HE WILL B OK????_

 _he say yes_ Akira sends back. Coach Brian doesn’t reply, but Akira can practically hear him sighing, all the way across the ocean.

Akira, Yumi, and Yuzuru take a train down to Nagano a few days before Nationals. Yuzuru is restless in his seat, like sitting still is difficult, but he’s slow to get up when they disembark, shuffling down the aisle. On the first day of official practice, Akira spreads out the yoga mat so he can help Yuzuru stretch his back and legs. Yuzuru looks down at the mat and then says to Akira softly, “Can we do some different stretches today? I can’t...I can’t bend forwards. Or backwards.”

Akira feels like someone dumped cold water on him. “Yuzuru,” he says firmly, and Yuzuru looks up at him, abashed. “The second this competition is over, you’re going to the hospital.”

“Okay,” Yuzuru agrees. He lowers himself slowly until he’s seated on the floor. Akira works his back muscles gently, taking care not to move too low or push too hard. Yuzuru still winces.

Yuzuru’s skating during the competition itself is a little messy, some elements changed to minimize his pain, but it’s still enough to make him national champion. As he thanks the audience after his free skate, he settles for nodding his head, unable to bow deeply. One hand is clasped over his navel, and Akira can only imagine how much it hurt to skate this program. After the victory ceremony, he skates around the rink with the gold around his neck, waving to the audience, but his smile is more like a grimace.

Once they’re backstage, Yuzuru sits down heavily in a folding chair, squeezing his eyes shut. He looks pale. Coach Brian takes Akira aside. “We have to get him out of here.”

Akira nods. “Right to hospital. I told him.”

A black van pulls around to the back of the arena. Coach Brian, Akira, and Yumi help Yuzuru inside, then gather his suitcases. The hospital is only fifteen minutes away, but the ride seems endless. Yuzuru winces every time the van brakes abruptly, jarring them. Yumi caresses his hand, her brow furrowed. 

Everything’s been arranged for them beforehand: a discreet entrance, a private waiting room, a doctor who speaks English as well, for Coach Brian’s benefit. It’s too late to have the surgery that day, but the medical team agrees it needs to happen as soon as possible. In the two weeks since the lump burst, the wound has begun to fester, and the disorder has worsened. 

Coach Brian looks green when the doctor says this. “Yuzuru told me it wasn’t that bad.”

“Yuzuru say not that bad if he dying,” Yumi points out.

Coach Brian rubs his temples. “I can’t believe I just accepted that. I should know better by now.” He sighs. “I was going to fly out tomorrow, but I’ll call and change it. I know there’s not much I can do but—I want to be here.” 

Akira gets barely any sleep that night, tossing and turning in his hotel bed. The surgery is scheduled for the next morning, and thinking about it feels like the ceiling is caving in on him. He has horrible visions of the infection spreading throughout Yuzuru’s body, unable to be contained; of Yuzuru reacting poorly to the drugs they give him. 

The next morning, he returns to the hospital. Coach Brian looks similarly tired, the dark circles under his eyes deepened. Yumi spent the night on a cot in Yuzuru’s room, and she is tidying up when they arrive, folding the hospital blanket into a neat rectangle. Her face is set, like Yuzuru’s when he takes the ice at a competition, but her hands tremble.

Yuzuru is taken into surgery around eleven. The doctor who speaks English shows them back to the little waiting room they were in yesterday. It’s clean but spare, nothing but a few hard-backed chairs with plastic cushions, a table full of old newspapers, and a television on the wall, showing a soccer match between Kobe and Sapporo. 

The surgery is supposed to take about an hour. Coach Brian pulls out his laptop and starts typing away, presumably taking care of coaching business. Yumi knits, needles clacking together rapidly. Akira flips through one of the old newspapers, watches the soccer for a while. Neither team is playing very well. 

The hour drags on. Akira can’t sit still anymore, so he goes to the vending machine down the hall, bringing back cans of coffee and bags of chips. Coach Brian peers at a can skeptically. 

“Is just normal coffee,” Akira says.

Coach Brian chuckles. “Don’t know why I always try to read these labels when I can’t read Japanese.”

Eventually none of them are doing anything anymore, just staring into space. Coach Brian paces, walking up and down the room. Yumi’s hands are folded in her lap. Their eyes keep going to the clock. It’s been almost an hour.

The hour passes. Every minute beyond it feels unbearable. The little waiting room seems about to burst, overflowing with tension. Akira sits still, waiting. Trying to breathe. He can’t look at Yumi, can only imagine how she’s feeling. 

Coach Brian stops pacing and comes to sit in the empty chair between Akira and Yumi. Without saying anything, he reaches for their hands. His palms are warm and dry. Akira should feel ridiculous, but instead he feels comforted. The three of them sit like that, linked, for an endless ten minutes, until the doctor finally returns.

“The surgery was successful,” the doctor says, in Japanese first and then in English. “We were able to remove all the infection. Yuzuru is resting now.” 

It’s like all the tension in the room evaporates at once. Akira’s fear fades, as if it was never there at all. Yumi lets out a long sigh, high and trembling at the end. She stands up without a word, heading for the door. Akira and Coach Brian follow after her instinctively. They’re halfway across the room before Akira realizes they’re still holding hands. Coach Brian must realize it at the same time, because he lets out a little chuckle and finally drops Akira’s hand. 

The two of them hang back outside the door of Yuzuru’s room, letting Yumi go in first. Wanting her to have her time with Yuzuru. Akira hears rustling, a faint groan. 

“My baby boy,” Yumi coos. “How do you feel? Does it hurt a lot?” Yuzuru’s answer is inaudible. 

The only noises for a little while are the singsong murmurs of Yumi comforting Yuzuru, not words as much as sounds of love. Akira wonders if they should really be loitering here, eavesdropping on this, when he’s startled suddenly by his own name. 

“Kikuchi-san and Coach Brian are here,” Yumi says. “Do you want to see them? They were worried about you.” 

Yuzuru must answer in the affirmative, because Akira hears footsteps, and then Yumi is peeking her head out of the door. “You come in and see him now.”

Akira steps cautiously into the room, followed by Coach Brian. He catches sight of Yuzuru in the hospital bed, Yumi hovering beside him. Yuzuru’s face is pale and lined with pain, head tilted back on the pillow and eyes downcast. He lies very still, as if it would hurt to move. Akira’s heart sinks. Somehow, in his relief that the surgery went well, he’d forgotten that Yuzuru wouldn’t wake up perfectly well, wouldn’t bounce out of the hospital and back onto the ice ten minutes later. There’s still a lot more healing that has to be done, and Yuzuru is only just out of danger. 

Akira composes his face, tries to make it neutral and comforting. “Hey there,” he says. Beside him, Coach Brian gives a small wave.

“Hi,” Yuzuru croaks, in English. “Sorry for worry.”

“It’s okay, it’s all right,” Coach Brian says. “We’re just glad you’re okay.”

“Sort of,” Yuzuru says. 

There’s a long silence after that. Nobody knows what to say. Akira doesn’t want to ask Yuzuru any more questions, or try to keep up the conversation, when he’s so clearly in pain and worn out from the surgery. He looks at Yumi, whose expression is somehow fierce and terrified and gentle all at once; at Coach Brian, who looks like he wants to sink through the floor. 

“Do you want any food?” Akira asks, hitting on an idea. “Or tea?”

Yuzuru shakes his head. 

“You should eat something,” Yumi says, imploringly. “Some miso broth?”

“Okay,” Yuzuru says, weakly.

“I’ll go get us all some food,” Akira suggests. “Food,” he says again, in English, when Coach Brian gives him a puzzled look. 

“I’ll go with you,” Coach Brian says. “I’ll help you carry it.”

The two of them walk out of the room and down the hall. Akira’s not actually sure where he’s going—he hasn’t been to Nagano that often, and never to the neighborhood where the hospital is—but he figures he’ll just walk around until he spots something good. 

Mostly, he wanted to get out of the room, to do something halfway useful instead of standing there tongue-tied. He’s never felt so at a loss in all his life. Despite what Yumi told him at the Cup of China, he still can’t shake the feeling that it would be better for him not to care about Yuzuru at all. Anything would be better than this awkward perch, so worried for Yuzuru he’s frozen once again. 

He thinks of Yumi, vibrating with anxiety for her son yet still able to comfort him, to show love. If Akira were really a parent, he’d be able to do this too. But instead, he’s stuck, feeling so many feelings with no idea what to do about them. He wonders, do they teach it at the hospital when the baby is born, this warm, unbending love so big it moves beyond fear? Where can he learn it himself?

Coach Brian is silent beside him, seemingly accepting that Akira knows where he’s going. It must be hard for Coach Brian, too, Akira thinks. He only has Yuzuru, but Coach Brian has a fleet of other students, some still children. Is he worrying about everyone else back in Toronto too?

“Are you okay?” Coach Brian asks, startling Akira out of his reverie.

“No,” Akira says. Something about Coach Brian compels him to be honest. “You?”

“Nope, not at all,” Coach Brian says, with a short, rueful laugh. “I feel bad, but it was so hard to be in there.”

“Yes,” Akira says. “See too much Yuzuru hurting this season, I’m done.” He tries to say this lightly, but it comes out too serious, his voice going high at the end. 

Coach Brian sighs heavily. “Me too,” he says quietly.

They wait on the sidewalk to cross a busy street. A cold December wind nips at Akira’s nose. 

“How you do it?” Akira asks, finally. “You have so many students. Do you feel this hard for them all?”

“It’s funny,” Coach Brian says. “I was just thinking it must be harder for you, since you’ve known Yuzuru for so much longer.” 

Akira laughs a little. “Is hard, but I just have him. You have everyone else too.”

“I don’t really know how I do it,” Coach Brian says, eventually. “It just kind of happened, and now that’s the way it is. But I didn’t think it was going to be like this, when I started. Nobody told me becoming a coach is basically like adopting a bunch of kids.”

“I never think any of this either,” Akira says. “I don’t even think I travel around, live away from Japan. I just think ‘oh, another new patient.’”

“You really got a surprise, huh,” Coach Brian says.

“I didn’t even see,” Akira says. “Until Cup of China. Then I get so scared, I realize—” It’s a lot harder to talk about this in English than in Japanese. “Yuzuru is like—like a child I don’t have. My son. You know?”

“I know,” Coach Brian says. “That’s how it is with all my students. Like one big family.”

“But, too hard,” Akira says. “I don’t know what to do. Too much feelings and I can’t do anything—” he trails off, feeling his eyes burning. 

“It’s really hard,” Coach Brian says, simply. “It just is.”

They’re just wandering at this point, walking with no real direction. Akira isn’t really thinking about food anymore. He wants to stay inside this conversation, with maybe the only other person on earth who understands how he’s feeling right now.

“You know, when Javier first came to Toronto, he was all by himself,” Coach Brian says, after a little while. “And he was trying to figure everything out. He needed a lot of help. And I was able to help him, the way a parent would. But I’m not his parent.” He sighs. “I’ve had students leave before, and it was really hard, because I got so attached. But I don’t really know—what else am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to not get attached?”

“I think maybe I can feel nothing, if I try,” Akira says. “I mean, I used to think. But now I think, it’s impossible.”

“I tell myself they skate better because I care about them, but I don’t know if that’s really true,” Coach Brian says. “Maybe I’d get better results if I was an asshole.”

Akira giggles, trying and failing to picture Coach Brian being harsh and distant. “You just are dad, in your heart,” he says. “I feel like I talk to my dad right now, talking to you.”

“Thanks for that,” Coach Brian says, with a low chuckle. “You know, people ask me all the time if you’re Yuzuru’s dad.”

“Just because I’m Japanese too,” Akira says. “Western people think all Japanese is the same.”

“Okay, true,” Coach Brian concedes. “But you do have—a bond. And I think it’s important. I never would have thought of half the stuff you’re doing, but you really do understand what he needs.”

“I hope,” Akira says. 

“It makes my job a little easier,” Coach Brian says. “I have to look after all of these kids, it’s nice to know you’re focusing on Yuzuru.”

“I don’t know if it do good,” Akira says. He still feels it looming, the uncertainty and helplessness. “I don’t know. What we supposed to do?” 

“Well, we better find this food,” Coach Brian says.

Akira laughs a little. “Sorry, I forget.” They turn down a side street, heading for a row of restaurants.

“Seriously, though,” Coach Brian says. “I think we just have to do whatever we can. And try to—try to love as best we can. If we can’t help getting attached, we might as well make it work, right?”

“Yeah,” Akira says. Absurdly, his eyes fill with tears. He shakes his head, trying to dispel them.

“At least we’re in this together,” Coach Brian says. He squints at one of the restaurant signs. “Does that one look good to you?”

They load up with food, everything warm and comforting Akira can think of, extra miso broth even though Yuzuru will probably only eat a few mouthfuls. Staggering back to the hospital with his arms full of fragrant boxes, Akira feels less burdened than he has all day. This is, at least, a start. 

Back in Yuzuru’s room, they spread the feast across every flat surface, until it smells like a kitchen, not a hospital. Akira breathes it in, heaps food on a paper plate and stuffs himself. Coach Brian makes a big show of trying everything and proclaiming it all delicious. Yuzuru doesn’t say much, but he smiles a little, and he eats an entire styrofoam container of broth without any coaxing. Akira looks at Yumi and sees pure relief, the lines on her face smoothing out. That’s a start, too.

Coach Brian returns to Toronto two days later, promising to be in touch as Yuzuru recovers. Yuzuru’s father and sister arrive from Sendai a day after that. They bring games and puzzles and old manga, familiar, homey things. Yuzuru is healing slowly and uncomfortably, but having his whole family there seems to cheer him up. 

Akira comes back to the hospital every day, unable to stay away. He slots right in with the rest of the family: talking sports and news, refereeing a card game between Yuzuru and Saya, choosing the next puzzle (a watercolor painting of three cats). He runs errands for Yumi, relays Coach Brian’s text messages to Yuzuru, does his best to help keep things soothing and cheerful.

For all that it’s difficult to see Yuzuru struggle, as his hospital stay drags on, there’s something about these days that is almost sweet. He may have adopted Yuzuru, unwittingly, but the Hanyus have adopted him in return. He’s one of the family now. 

All in all, Yuzuru is in the hospital for two weeks. He’s finally released on a chilly Monday, and the five of them return to Sendai. There’s still more healing to be done before Yuzuru can step back on the ice, but at least he can do it at home. 

When they part, Akira to return to a hotel and the Hanyus to head to their home, Yuzuru gives Akira a big hug. “Thanks for hanging out with me while I recovered,” Yuzuru says.

“Of course,” Akira says. “I’m sorry it took such a long time for you.”

Yuzuru looks down at the ground. “Yeah.”

“Next time something serious happens, I’ll make sure we get you help right away,” Akira promises. “I don’t want it to ever get this bad for you again.”

Yuzuru nods. “Okay.”

The rest of that season is an uphill battle, two steps forward and one step back. Yuzuru struggles and fights, working hard to overcome all his challenges. The silver at Worlds, a disappointment any other year, almost feels like a miracle. Throughout it all, Akira tries his best to be a source of strength and support, to care for and encourage Yuzuru. It’s hard work, and they’re exhausted at the end of the season, the coaches and Yumi too. But the fight has also drawn them closer together, and Akira has a strange sense of confidence heading into the offseason: this struggle has tilled the soil, and next year will be a great harvest.

****

“What do you think?” Yuzuru asks Akira, grabbing a tissue from Pooh. He’s just finished a run-through of his new free skate during practice, a practice he’d asked Akira specifically to watch.

“The jumps look good,” Akira says. “And I like all that choreography at the end. When you open your arms on the cymbal crash, that’s a nice touch.”

“Does it feel right to you?” Yuzuru asks, brow furrowed.

“What do you mean?”

“I want it to have that feeling, like when you hear the old folklore. That _Japanese_ feeling. You know.”

Akira does know—and oddly enough, he’d been thinking something similar, while Yuzuru skated. Old memories of a book he’d read on Abe no Seimei had come floating back to him, the way the character had lingered in his imagination. A wistfulness for his childhood and the awe he’d felt visiting shrines with his mother, the solemn weight of ritual. He’d even recognized some choreography from the movie, which he’d seen on TV once.

“You got it exactly right,” Akira says, and Yuzuru beams.

Ever since his conversation with Yumi in that hotel room, something has opened up in Akira: the freedom to be honest with Yuzuru. To cheer openly for his successes and hug him after his losses and give opinions on his skating. He’s not afraid of seeming partial anymore.

His relationship with Coach Brian has deepened, too, after that long, terrible season. They joke and laugh together, clapping and cheering for Yuzuru at the boards. It feels like they’re comrades in arms, embarked on a perilous and joyful journey.

Unlike last season, Akira feels excitement, anticipation, at the beginning of this new one. He can feel in his bones that great things will happen.

That excitement reaches its peak when they arrive at the NHK Trophy. Yuzuru is brimming with anticipation, to show his free skate to a Japanese audience, to repeat the short program that went so poorly at last year’s competition. It’s the first time in a while that he’s been completely healthy, nothing standing in his way.

Yuzuru’s short program is beautiful, clean and smooth like the notes of the piano. He starts with his eyes closed, ten seconds of nothing at all, but the audience holds their breath and waits with him, until he rolls his head back in one smooth, sweeping motion. His jumps are as easy and fluid as his first movements, his steps and spins building and building towards the end. Watching is like being submerged in warm, clear water, and Akira forgets, temporarily, that this is a competition. Forgets that he isn’t just another spectator, forgets every other time he has seen this program. He’s under Yuzuru’s spell completely.

Yuzuru receives one hundred and six points for this short program, a new world record. Akira would have given him a thousand and six.

The next evening, the air is humming with anticipation as Yuzuru and the other men take the ice for the six-minute warmup. Everyone is still buzzing from yesterday, expecting more greatness. But Akira’s gotten good at reading the energy in rinks—both the spectators’ and Yuzuru’s—and this pressure doesn’t scare him. It feels benevolent, like the audience is willing Yuzuru to further and further heights. Yuzuru shakes Coach Brian’s hand firmly and skates to the center of the rink, where he belongs. The arena fills with the whistling of Yuzuru’s own breath, amplified to begin the music. Akira breathes in and out in time.

For four and a half minutes, Akira, Coach Brian, and the ten thousand other audience members hang on Yuzuru’s every movement. He weaves magic with his skating, bringing to life everything he’d talked about this summer: the ancient story, the familiar characters. It’s Yuzuru at the height of his powers, deeply absorbed and profoundly confident. Akira feels like he’s watching from somewhere outside his body. This will surely be a world record, but he’s not really thinking about that—he’s living each step along with Yuzuru.

The final drumbeat sounds, and Yuzuru stamps his foot on the ice. The audience roars with applause, joy swelling like a wave. Yuzuru pumps his fist in pure exuberance, and suddenly Akira’s vision swims and blurs. A tear slides down his cheek as Yuzuru skates off the ice with one finger raised in the air. The gesture of a champion.

When the scores are announced, Akira thinks he might stop breathing for a moment. The numbers are staggeringly huge. “Broken” doesn’t seem like a strong enough word for what Yuzuru has done to the world records; “demolished” would be better, or perhaps “obliterated.” Yuzuru and Coach Brian sit in the kiss and cry with their mouths open, gasping in surprise. Yuzuru was the last to skate, but no one in the arena budges. They all stay rooted into place, taking in what they’ve seen.

Akira waits behind the curtain for Yuzuru to finally head backstage. When Yuzuru finally comes into view, flanked by Coach Brian, Akira opens his arms. He means it as a gesture of triumph, but Yuzuru, ever affectionate, throws his arms around Akira’s neck.

“I can’t believe I really did that,” Yuzuru murmurs into Akira’s shoulder.

Akira chuckles. “I can.”

“You liked it, right?” Yuzuru says, straightening up and fiddling with the front of his costume.

“That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Akira says.

Yuzuru blushes a little. “Thank you.”

“No, thank _you_ ,” Akira says, and Yuzuru’s blush deepens. Akira bows deeply. “It was an honor to be present for that performance.”

“Stop,” Yuzuru whines. One of his handlers makes an impatient gesture, and Yuzuru sighs. “I have to get to the press conference. But thank you.”

He hurries off, trailed by security and JSF officials. Coach Brian shakes his head as Yuzuru leaves, turning to Akira. “I still don’t even know what to say.”

“Me too,” Akira says.

“The judges came to me and told me they felt privileged to score that program,” Coach Brian says. He chuckles. “This is Yuzuru’s world. We’re all just along for the ride.”

“I can’t even think, that was Yuzuru,” Akira tries to explain. “I feel like—inside a movie. Like magic was real.”

“I know what you mean,” Coach Brian says. He pauses, and his face sobers. “I hope he doesn’t feel like he has to skate like that at the Grand Prix Final. He doesn’t need to be perfect to win.”

“Yuzuru always need to be perfect,” Akira says. “He skate like this in his head, every day.”

Coach Brian sighs heavily. “I wish you weren’t right. We’ll just have to see what happens in two weeks.”

The Grand Prix Final arrives, and Akira steels himself for the inevitable. A stumble, a botched landing, a pop or a fall. Yuzuru bitter and angry with himself for being merely good, instead of perfect. Or worse, Yuzuru skating sloppily, crumbling under the pressure.

But the spell cast at the NHK Trophy still holds. Somehow Yuzuru skates even better than he did in Japan. His magic seems to spread to the other skaters, all of whom turn out excellent performances—but Yuzuru is on another level. He is transcendent, powerful, a supernova of energy. His scores are dizzyingly high once again, and he bursts into tears in surprise after the free skate, Brian patting his back and grinning smugly. At the gala practice, he is vibrant, throwing off ridiculous jump combinations for fun and laughing uproariously with the other skaters.

Akira’s uneasiness hasn’t really dissipated, though. If anything, the new records have made him more nervous. Yuzuru might have hit his ceiling—this may be the highest score he can get, either this year or in the future. Without those great heights to strive for, with his limits reached, how will he be motivated? This high up, there’s nowhere for him to go but down.

When they get back to the Cricket Club, things feel different, too. Yuzuru is always focused, but now his concentration reaches another level, and he spends hours in the gym, on the ice, practicing his choreography in the dance studio. He has less time for Akira—he still gets a massage three times a week, and acupuncture every so often, but he doesn’t come find Akira to talk about his conditioning, or meet with him to go over training regimens.

It almost seems like Yuzuru’s avoiding him, which doesn’t make sense to Akira. But then again, maybe Yuzuru’s just busy. He doesn’t seem to be neglecting his body, or anything—Akira has seen him icing his feet in the lounge, stretching his legs in the hallway. Their massages are more silent than usual, not so much chatter from Yuzuru. Akira’s questions about training and studying get short, terse answers. Akira chalks it up to stress, though. Worlds is coming up, and the pressure must be intense.

A week and a half before Worlds, Akira hears a knock on his office door. “Come in,” he calls. He turns around from arranging his massage table to see Dr. Jackson, Yuzuru’s primary physician while he’s in Toronto. “Oh, hello. Nice to see you.”

“Hi,” Dr. Jackson says. “Just needed to ask you something. You don’t give Yuzuru any medication, do you?”

“No,” Akira says. “No medicines.”

“Okay, great,” Dr. Jackson says. “I’m just checking to make sure he’s not taking anything that will interact with the injections.”

“Injections?” Akira asks.

“The painkiller injections,” Dr. Jackson says. “For his foot injury.”

Akira feels like the floor has turned to sand, shifting and swaying underneath him. He must look blank, because Dr. Jackson keeps talking.

“You know, the ligament damage in his left foot. I guess the pain is pretty bad, so he’s asked for injections so he can get through Worlds.” Dr. Jackson pauses, peering at Akira’s face. “You did know that, right?”

“Of course,” Akira lies quickly. “I just…having problem with English today.”

Dr. Jackson nods sagely. “Well, thanks for your help.” He starts to head out the door.

“If you see Yuzuru, tell him I need talk with him,” Akira says.

“All righty,” Dr. Jackson says, his back to Akira. “See ya.”

Akira doesn’t respond. He paces around his office for a while, fiddling with massage oils and pads of notepaper, his mind roiling. He’s almost ready to give up and go home, try to corner Yuzuru some other time, when his door creaks open.

Yuzuru shuffles inside. “Dr. Jackson said you wanted to see me,” he says.

“When were you planning to tell me that you’d injured your foot?” Akira demands.

Yuzuru looks down at the floor. He doesn’t speak for a little while. “Dr. Jackson is taking care of it.”

“You didn’t think this might be relevant to me as well?” Akira says. “Like maybe you might want to tell _your trainer_ about an injury so bad you need painkiller injections?” His frustration is growing the longer Yuzuru stays silent.

“I didn’t want you to worry about it,” Yuzuru says. “Like I said, Dr. Jackson is helping me.”

“It’s my job to worry about it,” Akira says.

Yuzuru sighs a little. “That’s what my mom said when I told her.”

“And when did you tell her?” Akira asks.

“She kind of made me tell her,” Yuzuru says. “Because she saw me limping the other day and she wouldn’t stop bothering me until I told her what was going on.”

“ _Limping_ ,” Akira mutters. “So who else knows?”

“Just you and Dr. Jackson. And Brian knows that I’m having problems but he doesn’t know what they are. I think I have to tell him soon. And I guess then he’ll tell the federation people and stuff.”

“Oh, you _think_ ,” Akira says. His voice comes out harsh and mocking. “You _think_ information about your condition might _possibly_ be relevant to the people who advise you.”

Yuzuru’s face darkens with a scowl. “I already know what they’ll say. And I don’t want to fucking hear it.”

“Well, too bad,” Akira says. “Because they’d be right. You should consider withdrawing.”

“I’ve been fine all season,” Yuzuru says, testily. “One more competition won’t make it that much worse.”

Akira narrows his eyes. “Yuzuru. Tell me the truth. When did this start?”

Yuzuru considers. “NHK? Maybe? That was just a little painful, though. Definitely by the Grand Prix Final.”

“What the hell,” Akira says. “That was three months ago. You’ve been messing around with an injury like this all year? You should have been resting.”

“I told you I don’t want to hear it!” Yuzuru almost yells. “Once I get through Worlds I’ll get it taken care of.”

“And what if you make it worse?” Akira says. “Worlds is just one competition. You should take care of your body.”

“You always say that,” Yuzuru grumbles.

“Because it’s true!” Akira says. “What, do you want your career to end at twenty-one because your body is broken beyond repair? Do you want to have pain for the rest of your life?”

“I want to skate,” Yuzuru says. “And I want to skate my ideal skate, and I want to perform every chance I get so I don’t let anyone down. And I want to win.”

“That’s not going to happen every time,” Akira says. He’s starting to lose patience with Yuzuru.

“Well, I’m always going to try,” Yuzuru says, stubbornly.

“I worry about you—“ Akira starts, trying to make his voice sound calm. Maybe he can get through to Yuzuru that way.

Yuzuru interrupts. “That’s what I don’t want to hear! I don’t want everybody fussing over me and whether I'm taking care of myself. I’m an adult, I can take care of myself.”

“No, you can’t!” Akira can’t just stand here and listen to this. “People take care of you every minute of every day. We do everything in our power to make sure you’re in the best possible shape to compete. And now you come in here and throw a tantrum because we don’t want you to break your body on the ice in pursuit of a single medal. You’re childish, and what’s more, you’re selfish. You won’t even spare a thought for your future self, that’s how selfish you are.” Akira is almost yelling by the end, breathing hard. This is what he’s always thought, when Yuzuru ignores sound advice and goes his own reckless way. Saying it feels good, like rolling down a car window and blasting the radio.

Yuzuru presses his lips together, hard. His face is red, his brows furrowed. There’s a long, tense silence. After a while, he meets Akira’s eyes. His gaze is steely and determined, like he’s about to take the ice. “I’m going to skate. And I’m going to win.”

“No, you’re not,” Akira says, and almost claps a hand over his own mouth. He can hardly believe what he’s saying, but it’s like his honesty keeps snowballing, rolling away from him. “You don’t win when you skate this hurt. You get on podiums, but you don’t win.”

Yuzuru’s face does something complicated, emotions flashing across it too quickly for Akira to decipher. He takes a step backwards.

“I’m going to skate,” he repeats, like it’s the only thing he knows how to say.

“Fine,” Akira says. “I’m not going to stop you.”

“Fine,” Yuzuru echoes. He leaves, slamming the door behind him.

Akira sits down in his office chair, mind reeling. Now that Yuzuru’s gone, the relief of being honest with him has turned sour, curdled to fear and guilt. It’s so hard to know what to do with this stubborn, infuriating boy, adult and child all at once. Akira is stubborn, too, and when Yuzuru digs in his heels, he can’t help but fight back.

He’s worried for Yuzuru, for his career and for his health both mental and physical. There’s dread in his gut as he considers what Worlds might bring. And he’s still smarting from the knowledge that Yuzuru didn’t trust him with this. Perhaps it’s true, what he’s feared all these years—Yuzuru only sees him as an employee, and his compassion is nothing more than standard courtesy. But then again, Yuzuru didn’t tell his mother either. At the end of the day, Yuzuru’s primary loyalty is to himself.

Akira shakes his head, trying to dispel these thoughts. He can’t let this fester, because he’s still got to look after Yuzuru in Boston. He should find Yuzuru and apologize, maybe, but he doesn’t want to chase after him, or say words he doesn’t mean yet. He’ll just have to be professional, act like this didn’t happen. Maybe after Worlds Yuzuru will see sense.

****

Boston is frigid, even for March. The ubiquitous black van takes them down winding streets and past red brick apartments linked together like waves. It’s easy to imagine they’re riding in a horse-drawn carriage instead of a van, that the arena will be made of the same red brick and staffed by judges in top hats and long coats.

The arena is ominous gray concrete, however, draped in pictures of hockey players. “Teedeegahden,” the driver tells them, and Akira nods blankly. So far, Boston has done nothing to dispel the deep fear sitting in the pit of his stomach.

The storm clouds never really lift. Yuzuru isn’t talking much to anyone, but especially not to Akira. The silence during the massages and stretching sessions is as cold as the air outside. During practice, Yuzuru is grimly determined, his face set as he lines up for jump after jump. Akira places the towel over the boards a little crooked one time, and Yuzuru adjusts it, without saying a word to him.

It’s hard to be this distant from Yuzuru, their quiet bond disrupted, but Akira doesn’t think it can change until after the competition. If they talk about things now, it might end in another big fight, and Akira doesn’t want to break Yuzuru’s concentration. Not when it could throw him off his game, mess with his skating.

Still, putting off the conversation gives Akira a sick anxious feeling, one that only grows stronger when he thinks about Yuzuru’s injury, and the possible outcomes to this competition. None of them seem good, not even Yuzuru winning. Not when he could worsen his injury by even competing, or come away convinced he was in the right for pushing through the pain. Every time he sees Yuzuru on the ice, his heart stutters, waiting for the moment it all comes crashing down.

Yuzuru flings himself into his short program with reckless abandon, and it’s beautiful to watch. He skates a masterpiece of pure determination, born of having nothing left to lose, and when he finishes he roars in triumph. His score is only a few tenths of a point off his world record, and Akira shakes his head in disbelief. Maybe Yuzuru will once again dodge the falling rocks and leap across the crumbling path, avoid every consequence of his dangerous actions, make it out victorious and unharmed. Maybe Yuzuru’s life is really that charmed.

But on the day of the free skate, it falls apart. Yuzuru wobbles through his jumps, messes up one of his combos, stumbles and falls. He tries his best to make up for it in the step sequence, desperately clawing for every extra point he can grab, but it’s lackluster, listless. At the end, he’s exhausted and sweaty, and Akira can see the fear and disappointment on his face. The dread Akira has been carrying inside all week rises like a wave.

On the monitors backstage, Akira watches Javier Fernandez skate a beautiful program, clean and joyous, and grips the handle of Yuzuru’s suitcase like a vise. With every jump that Javier lands, every cheer from the crowd, Akira feels the dread lapping at his feet, threatening to overwhelm him. He thinks _mess up, mess up, mess up_ , but Javier doesn’t oblige. Akira has never resented Javier before—how could he, when Javier and Yuzuru are such good friends, making each other better? But in this moment, Akira feels a leaden mix of anger and jealousy toward Javier, steady and consistent and reliable and nothing at all like Yuzuru.

There are hugs and tears in the green room, followed by the medal ceremony, and then a press conference. Akira feels worse and worse, watching Yuzuru trying to pretend he’s fine with Worlds silver two years in a row. His own words come back to him, _you don’t win when you skate this hurt,_ and he can’t shake the conviction that he caused Yuzuru’s loss somehow.

He’d thought maybe if Yuzuru didn’t win, he’d finally learn his lesson about not skating injured. But Yuzuru is taking this so much harder than he anticipated, and now Akira hates that he even momentarily wished for it.

After the press conference, Akira waits around in the hallway, holding onto some of Yuzuru’s stuff—“I need to put a different shirt on, it’s too cold outside,” Yuzuru had said quickly, and then hurried off to the locker rooms, almost running. Despite Yuzuru’s haste, Akira’s been standing here for at least twenty minutes. Eventually, Coach Brian appears.

“Yuzu isn’t out yet?” he asks.

Akira shakes his head. “No, he went to change shirt but he hasn’t come back.”

“Hmm,” Coach Brian says, pressing his lips together. He looks tired. “Can you check on him, please? And make sure he doesn’t miss the last bus to the hotel. It’s not for a while, but—”

“Ok,” Akira says. He hoists his backpack onto his shoulders and heads down the hallway, towards the locker rooms. The arena is almost empty, and his footsteps echo. Two volunteers are stacking folding tables, and they turn their heads to look at him as he passes by. He doesn’t see anyone else.

The men’s locker room seems empty, too, quiet except for a strange snuffling noise, like a large animal breathing. Akira walks softly, his heart pounding. He turns a corner and sees the source of the noise: Yuzuru, sitting on a bench with his head in his hands, sobbing.

Akira’s heart twists. “Yuzuru,” he calls, gently.

Yuzuru’s head jerks up. His face is red and crumpled with tears, and he paws at it, as if to disguise he’s been crying.

Akira sits down beside Yuzuru, putting an arm around him instinctively. “I was just looking for you.”

Yuzuru leans into Akira, clearing his throat wetly a couple times. “Please don’t say ‘I told you so,’” he says, finally.

“Never,” Akira says. He strokes Yuzuru’s back. “I didn’t want to be right today.”

“You were, though,” Yuzuru says, and his voice wavers, sobs threatening to start again. “I don’t feel bad about skating, but I…I wish…” He stops. “I wish it hadn’t gotten like this. I wish I could have put it together today.”

“Me too,” Akira says. “I don’t like rooting for Javier to fall.”

Yuzuru laughs, a short choked sound. “Were you really?”

“I wanted you to win,” Akira says. “He should have messed up at least one landing. I gave it all I had.”

Yuzuru chuckles again, and then lapses into silence.

“Listen, I'm sorry I was so harsh to you when you told me about your injury,” Akira says. “I was worried for you, and I wanted to warn you, but I shouldn’t have said it like that. It’s hard enough being injured anyway.”

“No, you were right,” Yuzuru says, lifting his head. “I should have been more careful this season. I shouldn’t have pushed myself so much. I’m sorry, too.”

“Well, it’s done,” Akira says. “At least it’s the offseason now. You can take some time and get back to a hundred percent.”

There’s another silence. “I don’t know if I can,” Yuzuru squeaks out, eventually. His voice is hoarse.

“What do you mean?” Akira asks.

“Before Worlds, Dr. Jackson told me that the injury is bad enough it will probably need surgery,” Yuzuru says. “If they have to operate, that means I won’t be able to skate for most of next season. It might…” Yuzuru gulps. “It might mean I never skate again.”

“Oh, Yuzuru,” Akira breathes. He pulls Yuzuru into a hug, holding him tight. Yuzuru sobs against Akira’s shoulder, his back trembling. There’s a lump in Akira’s throat, and his eyes fill with answering tears. They sit like that for a long time, on a narrow bench in an empty locker room, coming to grips with the terrible future.

After a while, Yuzuru pulls away, sighing. He plucks a tissue from Pooh, resting on his open suitcase, and blows his nose loudly.

“I just wanted to skate something I could be proud of,” Yuzuru says. “And now the last thing people will ever see of me is that messy free skate. I’ll be remembered as some—some headcase who couldn’t put it together when it counted and then disappeared.”

Akira wants to deny it, but he knows how the media works. Only the most recent event matters to them, the past fading away with startling rapidity. Once a king has been crowned, everyone waits for his downfall, and relishes it when it comes. Plenty of people won’t be sorry to see Yuzuru go.

“I have a suggestion,” Akira says. “One that’s going to go against some of my recent advice.”

“What is it?” Yuzuru asks.

“Skate the gala,” Akira says. “Give them one last beautiful performance, just in case. So they remember the true Yuzuru Hanyu.”

Yuzuru’s face brightens for the first time during their conversation. “You think?”

“You can do it,” Akira says. “If you’re going to go out, go out with a bang.”

“Okay, I’ll do it,” Yuzuru says. He hugs Akira one more time, quick and firm.

The next day, Yuzuru is radiant, a glittering vision in green and white. He jokes and laughs with the other skaters as they wait their turn to perform, pulling wild faces and waving his arms. No one else has any idea that anything might be amiss.

Akira hasn’t watched Yuzuru’s exhibition program very much this season. The music is a requiem for the victims of the 2011 earthquake, the choreography a distillation of all Yuzuru’s feelings surrounding it, and it brings back too many of Akira’s own bad memories to make for comfortable viewing. But that night, he keeps his eyes fixed on Yuzuru, gliding under the spotlight.

Yuzuru’s exhibition programs are always beautiful, his artistic, expressive side set free, but tonight he is especially breathtaking. His fluid, smooth lines and the raw emotion in his face and movements weave fragile, poignant magic. The audience is spellbound. When he finishes, their applause is thunderous.

Akira sees tears in Yuzuru’s eyes as he takes his bows, mouthing “Thank you very much” the way he does after every performance. Akira squeezes his own eyes shut and pours every ounce of his energy into one desperate wish: that this isn’t the last beautiful thing Yuzuru does on the ice.

****

Akira goes back to Toronto with the Hanyus that summer. At first, it’s almost like a vacation—Yuzuru is resting, and there’s not much work for him to do as a result. Akira takes a couple weeks to recover from the season himself, sleeping in and watching TV, unpacking his suitcases and getting his little apartment spic and span.

It’s easier to take a break knowing that Yuzuru doesn’t need surgery, after all. He’s been prescribed two months of rest, in a cast to let his foot heal, but it won’t need to be operated on, and his chances of coming back this next season have risen significantly. Akira feels optimistic, for the first time since Boston.

But some of Akira’s optimism fades when he visits the Hanyus’ condo to help Yuzuru with his physical therapy. Yuzuru’s body seems to be healing well, if slowly, but he’s sullen and withdrawn, not saying much. Yuzuru always loses weight in the offseason, his body not built to maintain muscle, but it’s especially pronounced this year. His face is thin and gaunt, his hair unwashed. Yumi serves them both dinner when Akira finishes, making soft small talk with Akira while Yuzuru picks at his food.

A few days later, it’s the same thing all over again: a Yuzuru sunk deep in thought, muttering one-word answers to Akira’s questions; an awkward dinner with Yumi attempting to bridge the silence.

Akira isn’t sure what to say, whether anything he says will help while things are so up in the air. He just keeps showing up, doing what he can. Taking as much care as he can. “You’re doing well,” he tells Yuzuru after every session, and Yuzuru doesn’t really seem to believe him, but Akira means it. He hopes it will sink in after a while.

After two months of rest, Yuzuru is finally given permission to get back on the ice. His body falters, after so much time away, and it’s like he has to start from scratch. Akira walks past the rink on the way to his office and spots Yuzuru fighting to do a single loop, his legs unsteady. He turns his face away hurriedly. Seeing Yuzuru like this is heart-wrenching, so much struggle and difficulty towards something that once came so naturally.

Yuzuru’s physical progress continues to improve, little by little, but he still seems to be under a cloud. He doesn’t really want to talk about his recovery, and Akira doesn’t want to push. They haven’t really had a conversation since the locker room at Worlds, and Akira knows the emotions of losing must be fresh in Yuzuru’s mind with nothing happening to overshadow them. He feels for Yuzuru, but he worries, too. It’s hard enough to jump with a body still recovering; a heavy mind and heart probably aren’t helping.

Coach Brian and Coach Tracy are nothing but gentle and patient with Yuzuru, waiting for him as he builds himself back up. Akira eats lunch in the lounge one day, facing the windows to the ice, and sees the two of them flanking Yuzuru. They glide slowly along, faces turned towards him, speaking what must be words of encouragement. Yuzuru’s expression is neutral, listening but maybe not absorbing.

Later that day, Akira runs into Coach Brian. He looks exhausted, frazzled, and Akira hugs him, on impulse.

Coach Brian laughs in surprise. “I think I needed that. Thanks.”

“Yuzuru is—“ Akira starts.

“He’s in his own head too much,” Coach Brian says. “We’re doing all we can, but it’s hard to break through. I wish I spoke Japanese.” He sighs.

“I speak Japanese,” Akira says. He suddenly feels ashamed that he’s been avoiding the topic with Yuzuru.

Coach Brian laughs again, the slightly hysterical noise of the overstressed. “Didn’t you already talk to him about it?”

Akira shakes his head. “No, I don’t say anything.” 

“Really?” Coach Brian sounds surprised. “He seems like he’s really struggling.”

“I was too scared to help,” Akira admits. “I don’t want—push too much. But, I think I need try.”

Coach Brian nods firmly. “Yuzuru needs it.”

This is how, the next day, Akira finds himself at a picnic table on the Cricket Club patio. “We need to talk about your recovery,” he’d told Yuzuru.

“Okay, but can we do it outside?” Yuzuru had said. “I’m sick of being inside all day.”

It’s bright and warm, a typical July day. A light breeze ruffles the umbrella shading the table. Yuzuru’s arms are crossed, his expression impatient.

“So talk,” he says. “Say what you have to about my muscles, or whatever.”

“Are you still sad about Boston?” Akira asks, instead.

Yuzuru gives him a look, one part surprise and one part fear. “Why do you want to know?”

“You seem sad,” Akira says, lamely.

“Of course I'm sad,” Yuzuru spits. “I’m all fat and I can’t fucking jump anymore.”

“First off, you’re not all fat,” Akira says. “Your muscles are weaker, yes, but you’ll get them back. Your jumps will come back too.”

“Everyone keeps saying that,” Yuzuru says. “But—what if it takes a really long time?”

“Maybe it will,” Akira says. “So what? You’re only twenty-one. You have plenty of time.”

Yuzuru’s quiet, thinking. His face is turned towards the lawn, watching a flock of birds peck at the grass. Akira waits.

“I don’t have time,” Yuzuru finally says. “I have to be great right away.”

“Nobody expects that,” Akira says.

“Yes, they do,” Yuzuru says frantically. “No one cares that I was injured. They only care about who is great, who can win. If I can’t come back as strong as I was before, they’ll say I'm washed up. Everything I do from now on, it’ll be ‘oh, Hanyu is past his prime.’ Figure skating isn’t going to wait for me.”

Akira thinks, weighing his words carefully. He wishes, absurdly, that Yuzuru was less insightful about how the skating world works. It would probably make it easier to encourage him.

“I don’t necessarily think you’re wrong,” Akira says. “But I don’t think it matters. Skate for yourself. Build yourself back up to your ideal and then surpass it again. I think you can do that.”

There’s a long silence. Akira can hear cars in the distance, rushing down the road.

“I don’t know if I can,” Yuzuru whispers.

“Why not?” Akira asks. “What are you worried about?”

Yuzuru looks down at the picnic table. “I—if it’s just me fighting by myself, I don’t know if I can do it. And I keep fighting, and keep trying, and I just keep getting beaten down, and—and I don’t know if anyone else believes I can do it anymore.” Yuzuru’s voice is scratchy, his chest heaving.

“You really think no one else believes in you?” Akira says. “You think your mother and your coaches are just sitting there, waiting for you to fail? Really?”

“I can’t jump!” Yuzuru says, frantically. “I won’t be anywhere near as good this year as I was last year. If I even come back at all. And I know no one wants me to fail, but I’m just going to end up letting them down.“

Akira lets out a long, slow breath. Is this what Yuzuru’s been thinking about, all these months since Boston?

“You know, people don’t just support you because they think you’re a safe bet to win gold,” Akira says. “They actually care about you, they love you. Your mother, your coaches. Me.”

Yuzuru’s head jerks up at that, but he doesn’t say anything.

“I can’t speak for anyone but myself,” Akira says. “But I really don’t care what kind of jumps you can do. I just want to you to be happy and healthy, and working hard at the things you love. Everything else is just details.”

Yuzuru swallows hard. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” Akira says. He considers for a minute. “Mind you, I do think you can come back strong—even stronger than you were before. But no matter what you do, as long as you give it your all and it brings you joy, you’ll never let me down.”

****

Maybe it’s that conversation, maybe it’s the warm summer air, maybe it’s just his muscles getting stronger, but from then on, Yuzuru’s recovery starts to bloom like a flower, slowly unfolding. The jumps start returning, the new choreography comes together, and before Akira can blink it’s already time for the Autumn Classic.

Yuzuru’s first performances are a little sloppy, a little unfinished, but he seems thrilled when he finishes, energized by being back in front of an audience again. Akira feels nothing but relief.

Every competition that season is sweeter than the last. Yuzuru lands the quad loop for the first time in Grand Prix history, and keeps landing it. His performances grow and develop, getting richer and stronger each time. No one crashes into him, no one pushes him too hard, his body cooperates. For the first time since they moved to Toronto, Akira experiences the beauty of a totally uneventful season.

Even when Yuzuru is in fifth after the short program at Worlds, staring down the possibility of a third straight year without gold, Akira feels totally calm. After the kind of comeback Yuzuru’s made, going from fifth to first is child’s play. There’s no reason why he can’t.

And he does. Standing at the boards as Winnie the Pooh toys rain down and Yuzuru pumps his fist in triumph, Akira is vindicated, once again, in his confidence in Yuzuru. He thinks of his prayer after last year’s Worlds exhibition, that it wouldn’t be the last beautiful thing Yuzuru did on the ice. Today Yuzuru has surpassed that, surpassed himself once again.

Akira finds Yuzuru backstage after the medal ceremony. Yuzuru is grinning from ear to ear, vibrating with joy.

“Okay, now I’m going to say ‘I told you so,’” Akira says.

Yuzuru laughs like a child, honking and delighted. “Fine.” He takes the medal from his neck, shiny and gleaming, and puts it on Akira instead.

“Thank you,” Akira says. He looks down at the little disc of gold, the embossed laurel leaves. “I’m so proud of you.”

“No, thank _you_ ,” Yuzuru says insistently. “This is your medal too. I mean, you always help me, but this one feels especially yours. Maybe more yours than mine.”

There’s a lump in Akira’s throat. “Yuzuru.”

“I’m going to be better from now on, I promise,” Yuzuru says. “Now that I know what it’s like to skate healthy. I want to skate like this all the time.”

“Good,” Akira says, swallowing. “That’s my boy.”

****

And so they come around to another Olympic year, another ride on the rollercoaster. Akira’s been looking after Yuzuru for so long that everything’s starting to feel familiar, like the changing of seasons in Toronto, summer green giving way to autumn brown and then to the white of winter.

Yuzuru chooses familiar choreography, too, something to comfort him and sustain him during the Olympic mania. In true Yuzuru fashion, though, he’s not content to leave it the same as it was when he skated two years ago. He adds the quad lutz and quad loop, tweaks the layouts and the step sequences. If he can skate them clean, they will be even more beautiful than before. It’s hard to believe, but predictable at the same time—Yuzuru always moves upward, never resting on his laurels.

But this, too, is sadly familiar—Yuzuru on an examining table, face twisted in pain. He fell with his leg under him jumping a quad lutz at NHK Trophy practice, and the moment Akira saw it he knew it wouldn’t be something Yuzuru could just shake off. Even with a good night’s sleep, there’s still swelling and tenderness, and when Akira presses it, Yuzuru winces.

Still, Yuzuru’s skated with worse injuries before. Coach Brian is on video chat, calling in from Toronto where he’s recuperating from gallbladder surgery, and he talks about taking out the lutz and loop, focusing on stable jumps. Akira wraps Yuzuru’s ankle, readying him to put his feet back in his skates. “It’s your decision,” Coach Ghislain says, but everyone in the room already knows what Yuzuru will decide. It’s inevitable.

“I’m withdrawing,” Yuzuru says, and everyone lifts their heads at the same moment, shocked. It takes Akira a minute to be sure he’s heard correctly.

“You’re sure?” Coach Brian asks, voice tinny from the speakers of Yuzuru’s phone.

“I’m sure,” Yuzuru says. His voice is watery, but his expression is firm. “Olympics is most important. I can’t make worse.”

“All right,” Coach Ghislain says. “I’ll tell Ms. Kobayashi and we’ll have it announced. You can go back to the hotel and rest.”

Yuzuru nods. The room starts to clear out, and Coach Brian hangs up with a beep. Akira begins to gather his and Yuzuru’s belongings.

“I’m going to need help back to my room,” Yuzuru says, and his voice is rough and weary. Akira turns to see tears streaming down Yuzuru’s face.

“Do you know,” Akira says, “this is the proudest I think I’ve ever been of you?”

Yuzuru half laughs, half sobs. “I’ve won a lot of medals.”

“That was easier than this,” Akira says. “Or am I wrong?”

“You’re never wrong,” Yuzuru says. “You’re literally always right. It’s so annoying.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Akira says.

Yuzuru eases himself off the examining table, gingerly putting his foot on the floor. He winces sharply.

“Here, take these crutches,” Akira says, rushing over to him. “I’ll take you out the back so no one sees you.”

“Ugh,” Yuzuru says, but he takes the crutches. The two of them walk out of the room, slow and ambling, Akira sticking to Yuzuru’s side.

“Seriously, though,” Akira says, as they leave the arena. “I’m really proud of you.”

“That does help,” Yuzuru admits. “But—.” He trails off, and when he starts speaking again his voice is a low, scratchy whisper. “This is really, really hard.”

“You’ll get through it,” Akira says. “I promise.”

They’re quiet for a while, waiting for the van to pull around to the back entrance.

“I was going to go back to Sendai for a visit after the competition,” Yuzuru says suddenly. “I think I’m still going back there to rest. Do you want to come with me?”

Akira grins. “Of course.”

“Oh, good,” Yuzuru says.

The van finally shows up. Akira helps Yuzuru into his seat, then gets in on the other side. They pull away from the arena, into the unknown. Yuzuru leans his head on Akira’s shoulder, briefly, sighing.

“It’ll work out,” Akira says. “Even if it doesn’t turn out like you want it to. It’ll work out for the best somehow.”

“I believe you,” Yuzuru says. “I always do.”

 

**Epilogue**

Akira is having the dream again. He’s standing at the boards, watching Yuzuru skate to Seimei. This time he’s a tiny bit off, some of his jump landings wobbly, and he’s not doing the quad lutz or loop, which is strange. But the passion, the intensity, is still there, as it always is, in the dream or in real life.

It’s only when Yuzuru launches into the final choreographic sequence, an expression of pure joy on his face, that Akira comes back to himself and remembers: this isn’t a dream. This is the Olympics. This is for real.

The melody soars, and Yuzuru flies across the ice. The drums sound their final beat, heavy and resounding. Yuzuru stamps his foot. The noise in the arena is like being inside a thunderstorm.

Yuzuru roars his own approval, bends down to thank the ice. Akira stands there, stunned. There are still a few more programs to go, but this feels like Yuzuru’s already won.

There’s a whirl of activity as the ice sweepers hurl Poohs over the boards and the cameras shift their attention to the kiss and cry. Akira fades into the background, to await what he knows is coming.

Despite this certainty, when Shoma’s scores are announced and Yuzuru officially becomes the 2018 Olympic champion, Akira bursts into tears. He hasn’t cried this hard in years, but he can’t seem to stop this flood of emotion, relief and elation pouring out of him. After all these years, after all these struggles. His stubborn, impossible mushroom boy has two Olympic gold medals.

Akira is drying his eyes on the sleeve of his Team Japan parka when Yuzuru comes around the corner, looking just as wrecked as Akira feels. He runs toward Akira at full tilt, and Akira opens his arms to soften the landing. They still wobble a little, caught off guard.

“I won, I actually won,” Yuzuru says, voice clogged with tears.

“You deserved it,” Akira says. “You were incredible.” He pulls back a little so he can look Yuzuru in the eyes. “I’m so, so proud of you.” He wants to say more, but he can feel the tickle in the back of his nose that means tears are starting again. One rolls down his cheek, heedless of his efforts to stop it.

“No, don’t cry, you’ll make me cry again,” Yuzuru pleads. “I’ve cried too much today already.”

“You’re the two-time Olympic champion, you can cry as much as you want,” Akira says.

Yuzuru lets out a long, shaky breath. “That really happened, huh.”

“It really did,” Akira says. “Just like you planned.”

Yuzuru’s face sobers, and he looks Akira straight in the eyes. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“No—“ Akira starts.

“Seriously,” says Yuzuru. “If it weren’t for you, I probably would have been dead before I was twelve years old or broken all my bones or something.” His voice falters, wavers. “I don’t even want to think about what it’d be like without you helping me.”

“You’re welcome,” Akira says, as formally as he can. “I already know what I want for my thank you present.”

Yuzuru grimaces. “You better not be about to say you want me to heal my ankle properly.”

Akira laughs. “Well, that would be nice, but. I was going to say—be happy. Be satisfied. For once. You did well.”

Yuzuru doesn’t say anything, just lowers his head, so his cheek is resting on Akira’s shoulder.

“I should thank you, too,” Akira says, after a while. “For letting me come along all these years.”

“I’m not done yet,” Yuzuru says.

“Good,” Akira says firmly. “Me neither.”

**Author's Note:**

> "Parental love, and, by extension, mentoring love, is authentic and effectual in proportion to the degree that it transcends the commonly assumed principle of the circular exchange, that is to say, 'this for that.' All true love is a stranger to that kind of thinking. The 'justice' idea of reward according to what is deserved is replaced by the much more powerful force of noncontingent, compassionate alliance with the essential personhood of the other...against the destructive forces opposing that person’s good." - Dorothy Martyn, "Beyond Deserving"
> 
> find me on tumblr at someitems.tumblr.com


End file.
